The Civilian Files
by I-AM-SiriusLOCKED
Summary: Ficlets and oneshots about the people unlucky enough to reside in the same universe as the Earth's Mightiest Idiots. NEW: if ever there was an easy op for Natasha Romanoff, this should have been it. Extracting information from an unknown source, undercover for two weeks in a New Mexico prison, was like taking candy from a violent baby. But then she met Melanie Chavez.
1. Old Hearts (K)

**Old Hearts**

 **(K plus, Captain America/Reader Insert)**

 _"Give a man a mask and he will show you his true self."_

 _-Oscar Wilde_

You always prefer to be out on your own on the fourth of July.

There's an entire plethora of reasons why, all of which sounded perfectly reasonable in your head and perfectly ridiculous when you said them out loud, so this year you've just feigned a migraine and slipped out onto the streets of DC alone. The air's so hot it brings to mind the primal, before-time of swamps and things with overlarge, glowing eyes, the land that had been here before the US of A had stamped its flag over everything.

You are one of the few people without red-white-and-blue somewhere on your person, your Muggle clothes (for want of a better word) actually making you stand out more than the people draped in stars and stripes. You walk until you find one of the quieter bars, which is still of course loud as hell, take a seat at the counter itself and order your usual before turning, resting your elbows on the bar surface and watching the other occupants of the twilit, sweaty room.

This is the main reason why you enjoy solitude on this particular night so much. It's the best night to people-spot, you've found; patriotism brings out both the best and worst with people, and that's even without the alcohol. Your eyes settle on a couple swaddled in a flag, kissing hungrily in a booth as their third wheel friend fiddles with her phone and downs another scotch. There's another reason why you're not out with other people; the irrational fear of being left out.

You take another sip of your drink and your eyes shift to a loud group of raucous teenagers, this probably being their first night out. You can't help but smirk over the rim of your glass at their naivety, their excitement of fake IDs paying off and getting them more booze than their slight bodies can probably hold. One of them brings up the idea of going back to their college and doing a keg stand, which is met by a round of cheering.

"They're going to get themselves killed if they're not careful," a voice says to your right, and you turn to the side.

"Give them tonight," you smile, "they're young, after all. Bouncing back's in their nature." You take in the speaker- tall and toned, he looked like the sort of man to be on the cover of Men's Health if it weren't for the fact he seemed to be trying to hide all the chiselled muscle and jawline with dark clothes. _He must be boiling_ , you think, although there isn't a speck of sweat on his smooth and even skin.

"Guess you're right," he replies with a crooked smile to match yours, and you hope the blush growing on your cheeks doesn't show in the gloom. "I'm just glad I'm not the only one drinking alone tonight."

"Embrace it," you suggest, "that, or you can buy _me_ another drink. Number one way to get me on your good side, actually."

"Well, when you put it like that," he laughs, handing a folded-over bill to the bartender and shifting up so he's sat next to you. Up close, he looks familiar, but you can't quite place where. "My name's Ste-"

"No!" you exclaim, "don't tell me your name."

His brows lower as your glass is replaced. "Why not?"

"Because I'm enjoying the anonymity," you shrug, "besides, it's almost tomorrow and, at this time of night, names don't matter much anyway."

"Alright then," he nods, "what brings you out tonight?"

"A charming individual such as myself needs to try and mingle with as many common people as possible," you say with mock-haughtiness, which garners another laugh. "Nah, it's just that there's nothing on TV tonight and besides, I like the atmosphere even if I'm not a part of it. What about you?"

He spins his beer bottle round in his hand. "It's… my birthday, actually."

You gawp at him. "You have _got_ to be kidding me."

He places a hand on his heart. "God's truth," he grins, and you snicker. "I don't have any friends in town, and I didn't want to intrude on the others."

"Well," you say, "happy birthday, tall and handsome stranger."

You clink your drinks together.

"Thanks," he says, "although I'm not quite sure about the handsome."

"Please," you scoff, "let's not pretend, here. You're as attractive as I am average."

His eyes twinkle. "Now, there I _have_ to disagree."

"You flatter me, sir. That must suck, though. Being alone on your birthday _and_ Independence Day."

"No need to rub it in," he teases you, and you nudge him with your elbow lightly. "I'm fine, really. I've had worse."

"I feel like I should get you a present, or something. Only I'm kind of broke right now, and I'd be surprised if there's any store left open."

"There's no need," he says, "really. It's enough that you want to."

"Jeez," you say, "stop being so _nice_. See, now I have to do something, just to make _me_ feel better." You take him by the hand and drag him out of the bar, onto the street outside which is lit by the synthetically beautiful amber glow of streetlamps. "That wasn't it, by the way. That was just me getting claustrophobic."

"It's cooler out here anyway," he says, and you notice that you are still holding hands. "It's nice, actually."

"Best day of the year," you say, and he chuckles. "Listen. Do me a favor and call one of your friends tomorrow, yeah? Make 'em buy you a cake."

"They're not really my friends," he mumbles, "more… work colleagues. I _used_ to have friends," he adds hurriedly, "but they're not around anymore."

"That sucks," you say, "I'm sorry."

"It's fine. I'm fine."

"You done putting a dampener on my evening now?" you ask with a smirk, and he rolls his eyes with the same crooked smile.

"Just about."

"Oh," you say, "I've figured out what to get you for your birthday, you beautiful lonely man."

You can definitely see _his_ blush. "What's that?" he asks, and you rest your hands on his shoulders and kiss him, very lightly and very gently, as though he might break.

He's hesitant, at first- you guess this is the first time he's done this in a very long time- but his lips, soft and warm, open to yours and a steady hand rests on your back as you close your eyes and lean into him, accompanied by the symphony of muffled music and drunken yelling. It's the sort of kiss that makes everything seem beautiful, from the gum-speckled sidewalk to the dense, heavy air itself. It's the sort of kiss that feels pure, that it would be wrong to follow up with anything else, like catching someone's eye on the street and sharing a smile, like the book you read just once because to do so again would spoil it. It is in itself a complete and perfect thing.

He tastes like strawberry lip balm, like innocence itself, and you smile against his smile. "What?" he murmurs, and the moment is gone, never to be seen again.

"Nothing," you reply, "just… you." You inhale as he exhales, perfect harmony achieved.

Someone whoops as they whizz past on a skateboard, flag tied around their shoulders like a cape and fireworks exploding in each hand. Yep, that beautiful moment's definitely gone now.

You press your lips to his cheek and break away. "Happy birthday, stranger."

"Thanks. I kind of feel like I'm never going to see you again," he says, and you lift a shoulder.

"That's the way I like it."

"Well," he says, "I hope you're happy with… with whatever it is you do."

"You too. And you're a nice guy, by the way. I'm sure those work colleagues would feel blessed if you call them your friends."

"You haven't met them," he says drily, and you pat his shoulder.

"We're all just people," you tell him, "some of us might look different to others-" you take one last look at his admirable physique, "-but we all have the same bones. It was lovely meeting you."

"You too," he says earnestly, "and really, thank you. For everything."

"Well," you say, "you _did_ buy me a drink."

 **A/N and thus I begin the Civilian Files, which I will probably regret in a couple months, but hey ho. I emplan /emto do a new story every month, whether that be a oneshot or ficlet, never more than 4-5 chapters, about OCs and the Avengers co themselves. The age rating will vary depending on the story, hence why I'll include it at the top of each chapter, from K+ all the way up to M, and a complete mixed bag of funny, messed up and on occasion, sad, so be prepared for tone changes.**

 **If there's an overriding theme of the Files, it's the same one I tried to keep to doing the other Civilian Chronicles: you don't have to be a superhero to be interesting, or brave, or whatever. You don't have to be Thor to be worthy of lifting the hammer.**

 _NEXT: "A month after Ultron and leaving the team, and Tony was still having nightmares about the death of the Avengers being on his hands."_


	2. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (K plus)

**Self-Fulfilling Prophecy**

 **(K plus, Tony Stark)**

 _"History has a habit of changing the people who think they are changing it."_

 _\- Terry Pratchett_

A month after Ultron and leaving the team, and Tony was still having nightmares about the death of the Avengers being on his hands. Pepper noticed, obviously, but she didn't say anything until she woke up one night and he was gone, his side of the bed empty and cool.

"You can't let this start again," she said once she had found him, sat in the rooftop garden of their penthouse apartment they were living in, their California home not yet fully rebuilt. He was fumbling with some car parts, tearing them apart and reassembling them in an attempt to distract himself. "You know that, don't you?"

"It's just- I don't like not being in control of my own future, Pep," he confessed, dropping the parts into his lap. "And I'm paranoid that the nightmare the witch kid gave me wasn't just a nightmare, that it was some kind of... whatever it was." He couldn't bring himself to say it, it would have sounded so ridiculous. _Prophecy._

She sat down next to him. "Is that even possible?" she asked him, and he shrugged. "Maybe you should ask Fury. He's most likely to know. You wouldn't even have to tell him why, just say you were curious about the type of enhancements we're having to deal with now."

Tony kissed her forehead. "You're a genius, you know that?" he told her, and she blushed.

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm just capable of thinking straight, since I get a decent amount of sleep."

"Don't lecture me."

"Promise you'll talk to Nick in the morning?" she asked, slipping her hand into his.

"I dunno, I'm kinda busy being the most famous man in the world."

"Tony," she chastised him.

"Fine, fine. But I doubt he'll give me a straight answer," he said, "everything that guy says is cryptic, you noticed that? He's been a spy for so long he's forgotten how to talk like a normal human being."

She laughed.

%

It turned out there was already a short list of freaks- enhanced, rather- which was the good news Tony received from Fury. The _bad_ news, however, was that visions of the future- or precognition, as the former Director called it- was a very real thing that completely normal people experienced all the time, so much so that most of the time it wasn't even considered an enhancement.

"You're still messed up by what the Maximoff girl put in your head," Nick observed over his surprisingly white-girl Starbucks frappe, "aren't you?"

Tony didn't answer.

He snorted. "Well, I'm sure everyone else would find that bit of news _very_ entertaining."

"I didn't come here to be insulted," Tony said, glaring at him from behind his designer sunglasses, "so have you got anything useful to tell me, or should I just leave you to go and buy some Ugg boots to try and complete your image?"

He chuckled. "Okay then. Precognition isn't an all-or-nothing thing, Stark, different people experience it in different ways, to different extents. Hell, even déjà vu comes under that bracket- people experience extraordinary things all the time, and brush it off as just another fact of life. But you want to know your future? I can sort that out for you, if you really wanna go down that rabbit hole."

"I'm Tony Stark," he said confidently, "self-doubt is not a part of my repertoire."

"I noticed," Fury muttered. "Well, get your hiking boots on, because where we're going there's no red carpet."

"Wonderful," Tony trilled, "brilliant."

"Having second thoughts?"

"I don't like you," he snapped. "Just take me wherever the hell I need to go on whatever the hell magic carpet you use to travel."

%

Tony didn't like forests; he enjoyed nature of course, so long as it was a safe distance from him and preferably on the other side of a television screen. But in forests nature was immediate, and loud, and smelt weird. Last time he was in a forest, he had been beating up HYDRA agents. Time before that, he had supposedly been dead. And the previous time round to _that_ , he got KO'd by a god. Forests did not equal a happy experience, in his book.

They were way off the beaten track in Toyabe National Forest, so far off it in fact that it was easy to pretend that civilisation, that humankind itself, was a thing of the distant future. Despite the common knowledge that SHIELD was supposedly dead, Fury had conjured up two agents who were following them with stun guns and _real_ guns, which did not make Tony feel any better about the expedition as he stumbled and slipped his way after Fury, who was weaving his way through the trees on some invisible path that only he must have known.

"Are we nearly there yet?" Tony asked for the fourteenth time, and for the _first_ time Fury actually answered.

"Through here." They had come up to a fissure in a rock face that blocked their path and completely hid the way ahead, but sunlight was still managing to filter through the narrow crack. They had to turn sideways to get through it and even then it was a tight fit, nature once more getting entirely too into Tony's personal space as the damp stone pressed into his front and back.

"You ever considered using some dynamite, making this place a little more accessible?" he asked grumpily as they headed towards the light bouncing round the corners of the dark and dripping cave, his brand-new walking shoes splashing in clear black puddles.

"That would defeat the point," Fury replied.

"Why do you have to be so cryptic all the time? It's not good for our relationship."

"Do you have any idea how hard it was to find a secluded spot like this in the US?" Fury asked over his shoulder.

"I'm going to hazard a guess at not actually that hard," Tony volunteered.

Fury ignored him. "When we find 'em, try to keep your mouth shut until I say otherwise. Don't want to make the wrong impression."

"Well that doesn't sound good," Tony said under his breath, and swore as he tripped up on a loose stone. "Is this really necessary? Couldn't we just meet whoever this is in the middle, at an Olive Garden or something?"

"Stop complaining," Fury said shortly, as they turned a nook in the passageway that opened up into a wide and lofty cavern that even Tony could grudgingly admit was beautiful.

What would have been the far wall opened out into mossy-floored forest, more deciduous than the predominantly-pine one they had been walking through, with half of that exit taken up by a glossy pool filled by the trickle of something too gentle to be a waterfall coming down from the ceiling. The pool was half-in, half-out of the cave and fringed with mats that had been woven out of long grasses that soaked up the spray, leaving the smooth, level stone floor beyond it completely dry. The other wall showed yet more signs of habitation; another, thicker mat with a heavy woollen blanket folded neatly at one end of it, a few ceramic pots and jars filled with unidentifiable substances stacked in a natural alcove, and a goat tethered to the wall, which looked at them with a mildly disdainful expression as it chewed on a mouthful of grass.

Outside, in a small clearing that edged the forest, there was a beehive surrounded by a swarm of buzzing. A figure emerged from the dark, thrumming cloud and made its way slowly towards them, and Fury pressed his finger to his lips as it- or rather, she- re-entered the cave.

"Hello, Nicholas," she said in a melodious voice, not looking at them as she crossed to the alcove with a jar of honey, "I hope the journey wasn't too much for your urbane friend."

Fury smirked. "It was fun to watch him struggle," he said, and Tony scowled. "I brought you a gift."

"You shouldn't have," the woman replied, still with her back to them. "But thank you." She turned around and made her way towards them, which gave Tony the chance to examine her properly. She was albino - hair and skin completely white and somehow unburnt by the sun, with a young, soft-featured face and the marbled white eyes of the blind. That explained why her gaze was fixed slightly beyond them as she approached, but she never once stumbled or wavered.

One of the guards stepped forward and held a box out to her, which she took with long, fragile-looking fingers and opened. Tony, who had been expecting some sort of artefact, was surprised and somewhat disappointed to see half a dozen Oreos inside.

"Delicious," she said with a wide smile, and set the box down. "Aren't you going to introduce us, Nicholas? I'm sure Mr Stark is intrigued as to who I am."

Fury grinned at Tony's stunned face. "Stark, meet the Pythia."

"Gesundheit," he said automatically, and the Pythia laughed softly.

"It's lovely to meet you at last, Tony," she said, turning her unseeing gaze in his direction, "I've heard so much about you. You were right to listen to the advice of Pepper."

"Let me guess," he said, finding his tongue at last, "you read my mind."

"No," she said, "I knew it anyway. Can I offer you a drink? I only have water, I'm afraid."

"We're fine," Fury said before Tony could open his mouth. "We won't intrude on your hospitality for too long."

"If you insist." She clasped her hands behind her and gave him an unnervingly penetrating look, cloudy eyes now focusing directly onto him. "Tony, would you like to ask me something?"

He nodded, then realised she wouldn't have seen the reaction- or maybe she had, he didn't know. God, this was weird. "I…"

"Don't try to hide behind your words," she advised him, "you will fool neither of us. Tell me what you fear, Tony." When he still didn't reply, she looked down. "Nicholas, would you and your soldiers give us a few minutes? The bees won't bother you outside, I promise."

Fury nodded. "Play nice," he warned them, and gestured for the two agents to follow him outside. When he was gone, the Pythia looked back at Tony.

"Come sit at the pool with me," she said, "I often find it helps to clear my mind."

He obediently tailed her to the water, and they sat down on the mats. "I'm scared my friends are gonna die because of me," he blurted out, "and I need someone to tell me I'm being paranoid or something, but…"

The Pythia leant forward and dragged her fingertips across the surface of the water, creating ripples that distorted their reflections. "That took a lot of courage to say," she murmured.

"Thanks."

"Tony, there are terrible things on the horizon, events that have been set in motion by actions years, decades, millennia ago. This infinite universe is beginning to converge on a small blue planet barely out of its infancy, and our guardians are expected to bear the weight of wars that prove infinity is a lot smaller than we believe."

"The Infinity Stones," he said, voicing his thoughts aloud.

She nodded. "You have awakened very old, very powerful beings with them, beings which will most likely underestimate the ability of humanity to defend themselves. But that does not mean a lack of fatalities. The walls you built for yourself are about to come tumbling down, you will encounter people like you who traverse starlight instead of stratosphere, and everything you know will change, become flux. So flux, in fact, that not even I know the true outcome of the wars that approach us."

"You're not helping," he mumbled, flicking at the pool himself and sending droplets flying.

"I wish I could offer consolation, Tony, but instead I can only bring you truth. Before the wars of the infinite there will be another event that will change everything, and I am afraid that what you are paranoid about will, in part, come to be."

Dread seeped through him like rot. "How?"

She shook her head. "I cannot tell you that, for fear of the ramifications. I cannot tell you what deaths, if any, will happen, or if the loss of your friends will occur in a more metaphorical way. But there will be a schism in the heart of the Avengers and you, my friend, will be a cause of it. Not its entire cause, of course, but in part." She shifted so that she was facing him instead of the pool. "Listen to me, Anthony Edward Stark. You cannot allow what I have told you to affect your actions."

"How the _hell_ am I supposed to do that?" he demanded. "I'm supposed to just, what, _embrace_ that I'll ruin everything I created?"

"Don't you see? Don't you understand, Tony, that the more actively you try to avoid your fate the more you cement its happening? All you can do is prepare yourself for the oncoming storm, and think how you can amend the fallout you help to create. I have given you warning of inevitable events, now heed it. Protect those you love as best you can, and accept that some things are beyond even your control."

"No," he said, standing up, "you do _not_ get to get away with some half-assed 'warning' and a vague prediction that could mean anything. You're supposed to be an oracle, for hell's sake! You know, some specifics would be nice!"

She arose too, shafts of ivory hair curtaining her narrow face. "I have learnt from the mistakes of my forebears," she said, coldness creeping into my tone, "but if you want specifics, Stark, who am I to deny them to you? The image the red witch planted in your mind was no purposeful prediction, but because of the paranoia it planted in you it _will_ transpire into truth, because of you. Isn't that ironic? If you had never seen the cold corpses of your friends lying dead at your feet, then none of these recent events would have happened."

Shadows crept in, welcomed by the sudden darkness of her voice and Tony shivered, his expensive jacket suddenly doing nothing to keep him warm.

The Pythia pressed a forefinger against the center of his forehead. "But the witch planted the first foul seed of doubt in your mind and now it consumes you, corrupts you, affects your every decision. I see it in your eyes, though mine own are clouded. You are _scared_ , man of metal, and your fear will be your undoing."

He staggered back from her, newly fixed heart pounding in his chest with panic as the cavern seemed to grow darker, more primeval around him. "Please," he said, "there must be a way to stop it happening."

"Will you not listen to me?"

"I'm _begging_ you!"

The Pythia sagged; light flooded the corners of the cave again as the rage fled her body. "I am sorry," she said gently, "there is nothing you or I can do. The only advice I can give you is this; forget everything I have told you, and perhaps you will rest a little easier. Pepper was right, you know- sleep does clear your mind."

"How," he said, "how do you know these things?"

Her smile was sad. "The gift of second sight comes at the price of your first," she told him, misted eyes now settled somewhere over his shoulder again. "I wish I didn't have this innate knowledge of so many things, from the past and present as well as the future. It's muddled and confusing and gives me one hell of a migraine, not to mention I have no idea where this information comes from. You aren't the only one terrified of what is to come, and you don't know half of what I do. But someone has to bear the knowledge, I suppose."

"It must be terrible," he said, and she lifted a delicate shoulder.

"The most difficult part, I think, is the struggle to remain neutral. Oracles are bound to serve both friend and foe indiscriminately, the right of knowledge belonging to everyone. Can you imagine how dangerous a weapon foresight can be?" She pursed her chapped lips together. "If your HYDRA were to come to me, or Ultron, or even the Titan yet to be known to this soil, I would have no choice but to assist them as I do you. That is why I must be so secluded; better nobody knows of me, than everyone. A sort of loophole, if you will." She straightened a little. "But I forget myself; we are here for your problems. Tell me what you think, Tony."

He looked down. "You're right. I need to forget… this."

"You cannot fight knowing the outcome. As I just said, such a level of omniscience requires neutrality, to stay out of the battle and maintain a peaceful, civilian identity as best one can. When you leave my home, Tony, Nicholas will offer you the chance to have this journey wiped from your mind, just as he does to everyone who comes here. Usually it is to ensure my own safety, but I believe that under these circumstances it will be of some benefit to you, as well. Ask him to erase all memories of me, instead of just my location."

He shook his head. "Then I'll be back where I started."

"No, you won't. Some part of your subconscious will be unable to forget this encounter, I assure you, and that knowledge, though you are unable to access it, will bring you peace without the fear your active mind creates. You will be able to sleep a little better, I swear."

"You sure?"

"Stupid question," she said with a crooked smile. "You are a brave man, Tony, I can see that even without my gift. Your capacity to endure hardship is stronger than even you, with your astronomical ego, know."

That made his lip twitch upwards in amusement. "Thanks," he said, "I'm sorry I won't remember you helped me."

"Don't be, my friend. The knowledge I helped you is payment enough," she consoled him, and screwed her face up in disgust. "That sounded horribly pretentious, didn't it?"

He laughed properly. "Nice knowing you for a while, Pythia- what is your name, anyway?"

She hesitated.

"Aw, c'mon. It's not like I'll remember."

"No," she said, "it's just that nobody's ever asked me before… Katharine. My name's Katharine."

"Pretty normal name for a chick who lives in a cave," he joked.

"I had a family, once. Years ago, now, all long dead. So I understand a little of your fear, because back when I was Katharine I felt it too. May the grace of the fates be with you, Tony," she said as Fury and his men re-entered the room.

"I'm sorry about your family."

"Don't be. They had good lives, and I am lucky to be alive myself to remember them. Remember that you are never completely without something to fight for, when the world is dark and seemingly without hope. Hope itself cannot be seen without darkness to throw it into relief."

"Am I interrupting something?" Fury asked, breaking the serious tone, and the Pythia chuckled.

"I believe Tony would like to ask something of you," she said to him, as they clasped hands in farewell. "And avoid the interstate for the first fifty miles or so on your way back, there's about to be an accident. Oh, and thank you again for the Oreos."

"Not a problem. Look after yourself, lady."

"And you, Nicholas, or your second 'death' might actually be permanent this time."

As Tony hurried after the other men back towards the fissure, he glanced over his shoulder one last time to see the Pythia watching them with a mournful expression. It vanished as soon as he saw it and she waved at him, before turning away to tend to her strange little home.

The procedure to make him forget only hurt a little; Fury told him beforehand that the technology was originally an old HYDRA invention from the time of the cold war, which SHIELD had taken and refined so it was practically painless and a lot more precise. SHIELD were apparently a big thing again too, but like everything else he was going to forget that anyway.

"Feel like getting anything off your chest?" Tony asked Fury, just before he went under.

"You should be so lucky."

That night, on the plane back to Pepper from what he thought was just a forgettable meeting with Fury, Tony slept soundly for twelve hours solid, the first time he had done so in years.

He never could figure out why that was, or why from that point on some of his nightmares sometimes featured an all-white woman who spoke in a soothing, melodious voice in words he couldn't quite make out, words that quelled the fear into calmness. He never mentioned her to another living soul, but whenever he was on the verge of a panic attack the thought of the woman helped slow his breathing. It was just another thing he never quite understood, right on the fringe of memory.

That, and a distant paranoia about self-fulfilling prophecies.

 **A/N I reckon Stark is simultaneously the hardest and the easiest Avenger to write, because while his sort of humour seems to come easy 90% of the jokes tend to fall flat. Hope that my success ratio was slightly better than that... this oneshot was also an experiment in how specific I think I can guess about the upcoming MCU plots to be without completely going against canon. Kevin Feige don't screw me over on this okay?**

 **I also want to forewarn that the next fic is a lot darker than anything I've written before, and _especially_ grimmer than any other Civilian Chronicles. It's definitely going to come with an M-rating, and since I'm gonna start putting the first sentence of each File at the end of the previous chapter as a preview-type thing, this is a tiny glimpse of why -**

 _NEXT: "There were no two ways about it. Irene was a Nazi, a HYDRA, and an utterly irredeemable human being."_


	3. Black Sheep, Part One (M)

**Black Sheep (1/4)**

 **(The Winter Soldier & Avengers, Rated M)**

 _"It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be!"_

 _\- JK Rowling_

 ** _DISCLAIMER: dark themes_**

There were no two ways about it. Irene was a Nazi, a HYDRA, and an utterly irredeemable human being.

She had been born in the med bay of the Swiss HYDRA facility, to the administrator, Hans Hoffman, and his wife. From the moment she was old enough to stand the double-armed salute was drilled into her, and as soon as she was old enough to be truly useful, the age most kids would be learning to ride a bike or some shit like that, she was taught three things: how to hold herself, how to hold a tea-tray, and how to hold a gun.

The first was to ensure she passed as intelligent, as _useful_ , to the big American names that came and went through their quaint little mountain bunker with its picturesque ground-to-air missiles. She learned to speak German and Romansch fluently, along with some halting Russian coupled with French and English civilities, as well as how to complete sums in her head and read swiftly, without moving her lips in an unseemly manner. Her mother taught her anything a good, Aryan wife should need to know, except for matters of the bedroom, and her father made sure she knew the workings of the facility like the back of her hand. By the time she was sixteen, she was the perfect submissive, devout little blonde woman, invaluable but invisible, just as her superiors wanted her to be.

Invaluable, of course, because of the second of her three pillars of education- that of complete servitude to the good soldiers. Irene was their dogsbody, did everything for them from shining their shoes to greasing their guns, should they ask for it. She made sure Pierce and his friends were always supplied with endless amounts of tea and "Knabberei", _nibbles_ as her mother called them, offered with a close-lipped smile before retreating back to the shadows. She was everything they needed her to be, until one might think to lay a hand on her. That's when the last pillar- the gun- came in useful, and the soldiers learned that Irene was not available. She was forbidden, pure, and even if she missed with her tiny revolver then Hans would find them, a double-barrel resting in the crook of his arm.

Irene could shoot with respectable, although not flawless, accuracy; she had never taken a life, and admired the valour of those that had. She was too weak to do so, she knew it in her heart. Besides, it was not her duty to in the first place.

For much of her life thus far, Irene was so sheltered that she never had reason to believe that HYDRA's Nazarene views were wrong. Her world may have been rhythmical, repetitive and filled with drudgery, but she was treated well- better, she knew, than a woman deserved, because of her father's soft spot for his only child. A girl shouldn't know how to clean a gun, or which spot to kick the computer system in to make it work. Irene did, although she knew the other men were not to be told about it. It ruined the image, and she didn't want them to think badly of her, the big brave soldiers with their strapping gait and lazy, crass conversation.

Although always the perfect picture of servitude, she entered her teen years as a happy, relatively carefree girl with a quick mind and the perfect Slavic complexion. The latter did not go unnoticed, especially when coupled with the soft, supple flesh that grew on her previously narrow figure, filling it out into a form that kept the visiting soldiers awake at night. Puberty was a turning point for Irene; not only was she given a little more responsibility and respect, being referred to as Fraulein Hoffmann by the men, but once her mother explained that the blood pouring down her legs once a month was completely natural, she began to wish that her father was not so strict about how she spent her evenings.

But no amount of forced celibacy could stop a young girl in a building filled with testosterone and handsome young men who would emerge, naked and glistening, from the shower and expect her to bring fresh towels to them. She kept a list, the names of her favourites, and stared at it every night with hungry eyes and shallow breaths, savouring the peculiar sensation in the pit of her body that it gave her and shivering with pleasure as she imagined the men pressing against her, _into_ her. She would wake up the next morning feeling ashamed of herself, keep her eyes as ever downcast as she worked. Nothing ever came of those blood-pumping nights alone.

The year she turned sixteen, a soldier unlike the others was brought to stay. Irene knew he would be unusual because he was treated as a singular unit rather than part of a larger machine, as well as that his coming was foreshadowed by the arrival of a lot of large, intimidating machines and scientific equipment. The men in white lab coats that accompanied them would tell her very little, however many favours she did them. Pierce arrived a day before him too. She liked Alexander, with his twinkling eyes and a propensity towards her caused by him having a daughter himself. The other American men gave off impressions of danger, but like with her father she felt safe around Pierce. Protected.

"Fraulein Irene?"

She placed the files on a nearby surface and saluted respectfully. "Hello, Mr Pierce," she said respectfully, and he chuckled.

"How many times, my darling, must I tell you to use my first name?"

She used the same old response her mother had told her to. "At least once more, Herr Pierce," she replied, voice laden with the curling Swiss accent.

"Irene, I need you to do me a favour. Can you do that for me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good, good. First, I need to introduce you to our special guest," he explained, holding out his arm to take her waist. "Come on, we're on a schedule."

She knew better than to dawdle, and walked with hurried steps with him to the labs.

"I expect you're wondering who he is," Pierce said lightly, and she nodded.

"I must admit a small, sir."

"A _little_ ," he corrected her with a paternal smile. "Don't worry, I'm sure he'll take well to a pretty little thing like you. We've just been having a few… teething problems with him, is all, and we're seeking alternative solutions to our usual fallback. It's so much easier to break soldiers once and for all, I find."

Irene was so used to bathos like this she didn't even bat an eyelid. "Yes, sir."

"Here we are." They walked into the lab, his arm still tight on her waist. "Irene, I'd like you to meet… a friend of mine."

There was a shirtless man with his back to her, being swarmed by scientists, but he turned at the sound of Pierce's voice to look at them. He was tall but not exceedingly so, well-muscled and with a gleaming silver arm, plus dark, overgrown hair a little clumped by sweat. His expression was still but his eyes were restless, calculating and analysing the situation as only the very best soldier could.

"What is this?" he asked Pierce, after giving her a cursory glance.

"All in good time. Step away from him," Pierce added, "give us some space." The scientists left in a swarm of white, leaving Irene with Pierce, the new soldier and Bianov, one of her favourite regulars. The latter was tall and in possession of a well-chiselled jawline, and had always brought her flowers from outside the base, flowers from places Irene would never see. She had immortalised them by pressing them between the pages of heavy books, and kept them in the same secret place as her list. He winked at her, one hand hovering above the handgun strapped to his muscular thigh, making her blush.

Pierce backed away from Irene, leaving just her and the nameless soldier on that side of the room. "Do you like her?" he asked, and the nameless narrowed his eyes a little. "Answer me."

"I… don't know," he said quietly. "Do you want her dead?"

"No!" Pierce said impatiently, "why would I want that? What a waste of such a pretty little thing."

There was something in his voice, something slimy, that despite not fully understanding what he was saying made her shiver. And not in a good way. She wrapped her arms around herself, wishing she had worn a cardigan, and shrunk under the men's gaze.

"Mission report," Pierce ordered, "specifically, tell me what happened with the eyewitness."

The nameless' eyes widened a little. "I… I let her go," he said, almost too quietly to be heard.

"Speak up, soldier."

"I let her go," he repeated, louder this time.

"Why?"

"She didn't look dangerous."

"What did she look like?"

"Blonde. Like her," the nameless said in a low voice.

Pierce nodded, with pursed lips. "Rape her," he said calmly.

Irene didn't understand the word, but the one to whom it was directed definitely did- it threw him, he pursed his lips in panic. Irene knew the feeling; for some reason, her mouth was dry as desert. He glanced between her and Pierce, then shook his head just a fraction of an inch.

"Fuck the girl," Pierce said, "that is an order, soldier. Rape her or Bianov will happily do it, and you will watch."

"She's not done anything," the nameless protested, "she's just a civilian-"

With four large strides, Pierce crossed the room and smacked the soldier round the cheek with the back of his hand. " _Do it_!"

There was a war going on behind his eyes, she saw; he stepped towards her, slowly and with muscles tense, and extended his normal hand hesitantly, as though he didn't know where to put it. Irene's heart was thudding in her chest, but there must have been metal in her shoes and magnets in the floor because she appeared to be glued into her position. Her eyes met his, and each saw wild, animalistic panic reflected in the other.

The soldier's hand fell to his side. "No," he said quietly, "I won't do it."

"You won't follow orders because some dumb pretty bitch batted her eyelashes at you," Bianov said contemptuously, but was silenced with a look from Pierce.

"We need you completely compliant," he said levelly, "you have one final chance."

The nameless didn't once look away from Irene, teeth gritted as he shook his head. It looked as though the simple refusal to obey was costing him every ounce of energy he had, and yet he was still adamant about not doing whatever the hell rape was. It was a nasty-sounding word, but all of English sounded like that to Irene.

Pierce sighed at the inconvenience. "Wiping it is, then," he said. "Do you have any idea how much that costs? Fall back, soldier."

The nameless did as he was told, stepping backwards into his original position a few metres from Irene. As he did, Bianov stepped forward, once-kind eyes now almost malicious as they swept her body up and down.

"Herr Pierce," Irene managed to choke out, "what is happening?"

"I would be quiet if I were you, my darling. Officer Bianov doesn't like it when they talk."

"You don't have to do this," the nameless protested as he stood as immobile as she did, "I won't do it again, I'll kill every person who lays an eye on me if you just-"

"No," said Pierce, "you need to learn. I want your last memory before we wipe you to be of this girl, suffering, because of your insubordinance." He made his way towards the door. "I have no desire to see this, officer. I'll send some men in to guard the asset until you're finished."

"Yes, sir," Bianov said, moistening his lips as he pulled his belt from his trousers in one smooth motion. Behind him, the nameless watched with silent, begging eyes; _I'm sorry,_ they seemed to say, _oh god, I'm so sorry_.

Without words to confuse her, Irene finally began to understand what was happening and backed away, only to feel the cold wall pressed into her back. "Please," she begged, "bitte, mein Herr. S'il vous plait, per plaschair, bitte, _bitte!_ "

One hand pressed itself against her mouth, silencing her begging as the other pinned her arms above her head. As hot tears spilled down her cheeks, she watched over Bianov's shoulder as the nameless lunged towards them, only to fall to the floor as the butt of another soldier's gun cracked into the back of his head. They dragged him away and left Bianov to it, and after a couple of minutes his hand dropped from her mouth and he laughed at her screams.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't supposed to _hurt._

 **A/N written because I had been mainly doing lighthearted stuff and wanted to see how dark I could get. I had also read a lot of ex-hydra assassin stories (which are great, don't get me wrong) where the character has gone through traumatic events and turned good and that's all in their past and backstory, and figured I might as well have a go at not only writing it as it happens but also in the context of a very normal, civilian girl.**

 _NEXT: "she wasn't a person; she was a tool. She was a thing."_


	4. Black Sheep, Part Two (M)

**Black Sheep (2/4)**

The next time Irene saw the nameless soldier, he was walking out of the base in full battle-wear, and his eyes slid over her without a flicker of recognition. Bianov didn't even look at her as he followed him out, and that night she went back to her little room and burned the list she had hidden under her bed, burned the preserved petals he had brought her.

A couple of months later, her mother figured out what happened from the lack of monthly blood spots on her underwear and, without a word of pity, did something to her with a wire coathanger and a bathtub filled with vodka that hurt almost as much as the original incident. _Your father must never know_ , she had implored Irene, _we can never tell him, do you understand me? Never._

She lost the ability to smile after that, hid her body in the most shapeless clothes she could find and shied away from the soldiers as they passed. She made herself throw up the next time Pierce visited so she wouldn't have to serve him on the pretence of being ill. The incident had planted a seed of doubt in her mind about the benevolence of HYDRA, the righteousness of the Nazi way- what had happened to her wasn't good, wasn't pure. It hadn't even happened because of _her_ , no, she had been used merely as an instrument to punish someone else, because he had dared to spare someone's life.

When she turned eighteen, Irene was allowed to carry out the occasional two-mile trek to the nearest town in the mountain range that happened whenever her parents unexpectedly ran out of supplies. The presence of so many civilians, and more importantly a complete lack of soldiers, was a complete shock to her; a welcome one, though, which added fuel to the tiny flame of rebellion growing inside of her.

There was a library in the town, filled with dusty books and dusty librarians, as well as a couple of clunky computers that took an age to load tucked into one corner. There was much more sophisticated technology back at the facility, but she didn't want anyone to know what she was doing and besides, she wasn't allowed near it without supervision anyway. Her fourth visit was when she finally plucked up the courage to use them: once she had sprinted down the high street and bought the cleaning fluid as fast as she could, she switched on the computer and began her search for who she was supposed to be.

Twenty minutes later, she was sat deadly still as she stared at the monitor with tears running down her face, grainy images of countless corpses reflected in her grey-blue irises. She had been raised in a cult of murder and bigotry, raised to worship those who had caused the death of millions, and for eighteen years she had… idolised them. She had thought these, these _monsters_ to be the heroes, which meant that she was one too. As was her mother, her father, the only two people in the world she truly loved.

 _What am I supposed to do now?_ she thought, shutting down the computer and beginning the walk through pine forests back to the facility. _I can't keep doing this, but it's all I've ever known. The world tells me that we are wrong, but who am I to believe? Millions of people I have never met, or the few who have raised me? The world has never shown_ me _any kindness._

But that wasn't true. The nameless soldier had refused to touch her, and then her people had punished him for it. _Is that enough to make me run for the rest of the world? Now he has gone again anyway, and how am I to give up my entire life? We are utterly isolated; there is no escape, if I am gone for more than a few hours they will send soldiers to search for me. Perhaps I should just give in, return to how I once thought. Besides, to leave is assume free will is healthy, rather than toxic. I still do not know who is correct about that._

As she stomped her way up the snowy path, she thought about what good lack of free will- HYDRA's most important cornerstone- had done for her. If free will had been permitted, the incident would most likely never have happened, since the nameless soldier would not have been able to _choose_ to spare that girl's life - _but to base my decision on just my own experiences is selfish. HYDRA's beliefs are to protect the ignorant millions, not me._

But why should she be separate from them?

Irene had been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she flinched when the concrete walls of the facility suddenly loomed up out of the cliff face at her, followed by a few of the guards swarming round her to check she was not a threat. This base, where she will never be anything more than a servant because of her gender, where she was used and thrown aside like a child's toy. She wasn't a person; she was a tool. She was a _thing_.

 _I do not care if my reasons are selfish_ , she decided, _I cannot stay here. Mother, Father, please forgive me._ She could no longer be their daughter, not if she was going to flee this forsaken place. She needed another name, one for starting anew.

%

The first thing Irene Neumann ever did was bring a mug of fresh coffee to the man in the surveillance room. The _second_ thing she did was peer over his shoulder over the list of which security camera monitored where, and the next three years of her life followed the same pattern; pretending to still be happy in her old role, as if nothing were amiss, and using their trust to slowly gather information, piece by tiny piece. Fortunately, Irene had learned patience from an early age and thus never once took a risk, knowing the price would be a bullet in her head if she did.

Meanwhile, in the gap between the tub in her bathroom and the wall a small collection of supplies was growing: food, non-perishables, lightweight clothes to change into (she would run after the annual thaw, she decided, when the land was green and she wouldn't catch frostbite overnight), a print-out map of the local landscape she had gained from the library's computers, spare bullets for her little revolver and a bag to put it all in.

And then, one sunny April afternoon, Irene realised she was ready. Her things were packed and tripe-checked, the weather was mild, and the guards on rotation that night were the laziest in the facility. The thought of her freedom finally being within touching distance made her twitchy throughout the day, so much so that her parents noticed it at dinner that evening.

"Ich bin gut, danke," she said to her mother when she enquired as to why Irene's hands were shaking. _Perfectly fine, please don't worry about me, please…_ "Mutti?"

"Ja, Irene?"

"Ich…" she faltered. "Ich liebe dich. Und Vati." _I love you both so much, I am so sorry, I wish I never saw what terrible people we were and I wish I never had to leave you. Oh, god, I love you and I'm sorry._

Her parents exchanged slightly confused glances, but didn't pursue the matter further; their daughter had been distant from them ever since the Winter Soldier had arrived. They merely thought she was pining after him, the asset being a handsome man after all, and although her mother soon learned differently her father never suspected a thing. She finished her plate as quickly as possible, knowing it was important to eat as much as she could, and excused herself to go and sit in her bedroom until the clock on the wall told her it was time to go.

She climbed into bed still wearing her HYDRA uniform (a grey skirt suit unchanged from the ones they wore in the 1940s, with the symbol embellished on the lapel and collar of the shirt) and listened to her heart beating steadily against her ribcage. She was scared, horribly scared of what was coming next, but the thought of spending the rest of her life in the facility made her skin crawl. The closer she came to carrying out her plan the less likely she was to give up, and now it was the night of her escape the might of the Reich could not have held her back.

She listened through the thin wall as her parents got into bed, waiting for their breathing to become soft snores before slipping out of her own sheets and pulling on her shoes, intending to change into boots and trousers when she was out of the compound. She pulled her bag over her shoulder and glanced around one last time at the room she had spent her whole life in. _Goodbye bookshelf_ , she thought, _goodbye desk. Goodbye photo of Red Skull, which always gave me nightmares as a child until I learned to idolise it. Goodbye photo of the squirrel I took when I was twelve. Goodbye clock that was always two minutes late. Goodbye._

She could navigate the route to the trade exit, which used all the surveillance's blind spots, blindfolded, but that still didn't make her feel any less nervous. She hardly breathed at all until she reached the rusting metal doors which she knew were always left slightly ajar, but that didn't matter since there was security posted a dozen metres beyond them. It was two men sat at the perimeter fence, dozing lightly since this was one of the less important jobs, with empty coffee mugs at their feet. She picked these up and took them with her as she circled the fence, so that if either of them was half-awake they would just think she was collecting dirty crockery to wash. As soon as she was out of earshot, she threw them as far as she could into the forest, the opposite direction to which she was headed.

The floor was mostly moss which thankfully muffled her footsteps, and Irene ran until she ran out of breath. With the spring air biting at her skin a little, she stripped off and pulled the HYDRA overalls out of her bag before lacing up the heavy soldier boots, which she had to pair with three sets of socks to make them fit. A heavy coat hid her feminine frame under a good deal of bulk, and with the moon lighting her way through the canopy she continued down the mountainside, ringing around the outside of the town.

It was an hour or two before dawn, when she was cutting through an alleyway of the town, when the alarms began to holler back up at the facility. It felt as though her heart was trying to jump up through her throat and she quickened her slightly exhausted pace. Her fingers wrapped tightly around the gun in her pocket as windows opened and housewives exchanged loud, guttural conversations about what all the fuss was about. _Me,_ Irene thought, _it can only be me. This is my fault._

Another twenty minutes and Irene would be out of the town, on the wide unsheltered road that led out of the mountains- maybe someone would be kind enough to give her a lift. If the soldiers came after her in vehicles, it would take half an hour to reach the point she was at now, but surely she wasn't so important- better to save her energy, she figured, and resisted the urge to break into a run again.

"On the farm," she sung under her breath, "it's rabbit pie day… la la la… run rabbit, run rabbit, run run run… don't give the farmer his fun fun fun…" she hit the edge of town, where the houses began to peter out. "Gott in Himmel… He'll get by without his rabbit pie, so run rabbit, run rabbit-"

The sounds of massive engines tore through the quaint little area, heading towards her.

"Oh, sheisse," she whispered, "nein, bitte _nein_!"

She started to sprint, giving up all hope of hiding and just hoping that she could reach the road before they caught up with her. She stuck to the verge, leaping over rocks and tree roots with her bag thudding and bruising her hip with each jump, but she could never outrun a jeep. Within minutes, she could hear the excited shouts of the men searching for her, _hunting_ for her. But she could hear the distant sound of civilian engines ahead of her as well, just another half a mile or so and she would be free-

 _Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!_

 _Goes the farmer's gun!_

She screeched in pain as something tore through her lower leg, ripping muscle and shattering bone, and fell to the floor. As she writhed in agony the floor shook with synchronised thuds of soldiers' feet, they were coming close to her now and she could see the victory mixed with disgust on their faces. She tried to beg but all that came out of her mouth was a panicked shriek. One of them raised his gun above her face like they had done to the nameless soldier during the incident, and-

 _Crack._

Everything went black.


	5. Black Sheep, Part Three (M)

**Black Sheep (3/4)**

Irene woke up in a cell she had only previously seen from the outside, with a wall made of bulletproof glass and her hands shackled behind her. She shifted slightly and the world spun, making her feel sick and dizzy- she remembered the hit to her face, and let out a sob as she realised her nose must be broken. Yes, that was dried blood she tasted on her top lip, but as she glanced down she saw that her leg had been roughly splinted and bandaged. That wouldn't do much good, though, not with the shards of bone the bullet had created. With difficulty she pulled her arms up over her head and reached forward to pull back the bandage; her sob turned to a gag as she saw the mess of blood and pus beneath it.

"Hallo?" she called out. "Mein Bein wird Nässen… hilfe!" _Help! Help me, you bastards, you did this to me!_ "HILFE! Aidez-moi! Aiuto, help me, agid!" But nobody came. _They put me in here,_ she thought, _so they want me alive. That was probably my father, calling in a few favours and promising many more. Oh, what if he is in trouble too? This is all my fault. I should never have tried to escape._

"Irene?"

"Mutti!" she turned and tried to drag herself towards the glass, where her mother was standing. "Mutti, ich-"

"Shtum!" her mother barked, voice muffled by the glass, and Irene dutifully fell silent. "Sie sind nicht meine Tochter."

 _Not her daughter?_ "Aber-"

" _Nein_!" her mother snapped, face contorted in upset and fury. "Dummes Mädchen."

 _I know,_ she thought, _I know I'm stupid, I'm sorry._ "Mein Vati-"

"Hans-" her mother broke off and pressed a hand to her mouth. "Hans ist… mein Gott…"

 _No,_ Irene thought, _please no, please don't say it mother, please…_

"Hans is tot," Mrs Hoffmann choked out, and hurried away.

 _Dead._ Her father was dead, because of her foolishness. They had punished _him_ for her wrongdoings, just as _she_ had been for the nameless soldier's; and now she would have to live with it forever, the horrible guilt of knowing she had torn her tiny family apart in the space of a single night. She had lost everyone, and gained nothing. Slowly, her now-ugly face twisted in hurt, Irene forced herself onto her knees, pressed her hands together and began to pray.

HYDRA had never encouraged religion, but her mother always wore a little cross around her neck- she prayed to that first, the little cross, then remembered she was an abomination, unworthy of an omnipotent God's attention, and as such turned her prayers to any deity who might happen to be listening.

 _I'm sorry_ , she repeated over and over again, _please help me, I am cold and alone and hurting, I will repent if you please just help me now_ … the words became her mantra, filling her every waking moment and lulling her until she passed out.

Meanwhile, dry food and water was shoved through a flap in the door twice a day. This allowed her to keep a tally of how long she had been in there by scratching lines into the wall with a safety pin she had found in the pocket of her overalls. Her body became thinner and greyer and her hair began to fall out. The hole in her leg grew gradually worse until one day, when she had begun to fit and seizure from the mould that was infecting her entire body, they were forced to cut it off. Unlike the nameless soldier and his gleaming metal arm, they just left her with an ugly stump and ghost pains beneath it.

After six months, an important-looking man in a suit came to speak to her. "Do you feel punished yet?" he asked her, leaning casually against the glass. "Do you feel you have atoned for your sins, little girl?"

Her mind was so confused nowadays that she barely understood him, and the fact he spoke English didn't help. "Sorry," she whispered, "I am sorry, please God I am sorry, please help me-"

"Dumb whore," he spat at her, and walked away.

The safety pin snapped on the very last tally mark she could fit on the far wall- seventy-four sets of five, which meant she had been in here a little over a year already. Was it really that long? She must have lost track of time a while ago, and now with no way to keep score she was worried she might go mad.

At least her cell was in one of the labs, which allowed her a little entertainment as she watched the lab coats add solids to liquids, set fire to things and generally make an awful lot of explosions. That, and it appeared she was now part of the welcome tour. What she could glean from the officer's distant voice as he showed new recruits around was that she was an example of what would happen if they dared defy the HYDRA rule. Some would look scared, some pitiful, and some would wave at her- she hid in the darkest corner of her cell until they left.

Irene was dreadfully narrow now; she could run her finger along her spine and feel the bump of every vertebrae against it, hook the same finger under the bottom of her ribcage and feel the emptiness inside of her. Her food must have been carefully measured so that she didn't actually starve to the point of death, and she was too scared to refuse to eat it in case they decided to punish her for that, too. Her one act of disobedience had only ruined her life, after all, which did not give her the confidence to commit any further ones.

 _I don't think I am a Nazi anymore,_ she mused one day, _nor HYDRA. It is funny, but what I was trying to achieve by running away happened even when I failed to do so. Well, perhaps not_ funny _I suppose. Please, help me. I do not want this anymore. Please, gods, angels, help me._

One day, her cell was illuminated by a strange, pretty blue light and Irene hopped up to the glass to investigate its source. It came from a long gold stick, double-pointed at one end, and the light itself seemed to be almost touchable, so thick it was near the centre of it. The scientists were scanning it with beeping machines, and she watched until it was taken away again. It must have only been there a few hours, because it happened within a single shift- none of the men in the lab swapped places.

As they took it away, a man with a monocle attached to one eye came to talk to the head scientist. "The girl in the jam jar," he said (that was what they called her cell) "do you think she is strong?" He had an eastern European accent, but he used English for the sake of easy communication.

The scientist laughed shortly. "Not at all, Baron," he replied. "Or I would have sent her off for your experiments years ago. No, she's just something to strike a little fear into the soldiers' hearts. A warning, I suppose you could say. Nothing special, and certainly not _strong_. I have to listen to her crying, most days."

The monocle man nodded. "Very well," he said, and followed the glowing stick out of the room. That was the most interesting thing Irene could remember happening while she was in the cell, and hoped something similar would occur again. She returned to the corner she slept in with wonky steps, pulled the filthy rags that had once been her overalls over the top of her, prayed, and fell asleep once more.

%

Gunshots. That was what woke Irene up, countless meals after the monocle man; the sound of gunshots in the facility, where they shouldn't be. _No firing allowed in the corridors_ , she thought dully, then her instincts kicked in and she began to panic. The lab was completely empty, which it had never been before, and among the gunshots and voices she could hear other, stranger noises, and the sound of thunder. _What are they doing?_

She sat up, cricked her neck and shuffled up to the glass, only to jump back as a HYDRA-uniformed body went flying past it at what appeared to be the speed of sound. They were under attack- _they were under_ _attack!_

"HELP!" she screamed, slamming her rickety fists against the window, "HELP! HILFE! AGID! HELP ME!"

Another HYDRA soldier ran into the room, pointed his gun directly at one of the breathing holes cut into the glass- and was thrown aside like a ragdoll as something connected with his head.

The weapon - all she saw was a blur of silver - returned to a large, outstretched hand and Irene scrambled back in fright. Possibly the largest man she had ever seen was in the doorway; he was very tall and very wide, with long blond hair and… and a _cape._

"Was it you who called for help?" he asked, and somehow she understood. She was sure he wasn't speaking any language she knew, but the words made perfect sense in her head. Something told her that he spoke in a tongue that could be understood by _anyone_. _Magic._

She nodded, and gulped as he ran towards her.

She needn't have been worried; the giant crouched in front of the glass and gave her a surprisingly warm, kind smile. "What is your name?" he asked her softly.

"Irene," she said in a cracked voice.

"What a pretty name. Well, Irene, I'm going to get you out of this cell," he announced, voice rising again. "I suggest you move away from the glass."

"You can't," she warned him, "bullets do not work on it."

"Well, it's a good thing I didn't bring bullets." He swung the silver thing round and round in his hand, and when Irene was pressed against the back wall he brought it against the glass, which shattered with such an intensity it turned to powder as it fell to the floor.

"Irene, my name is Thor," said the giant as he stepped inside, then scooped her up in his powerful arms.

 _Like the god,_ she thought. Perhaps her prayers had worked.

"I am going to take you to the Captain, Irene," he said. Every time he said her name her body flooded with life. "We're going to get you somewhere safe, away from here. Do you know if there is anyone else?" he asked, carrying her out of the lab and down the corridor.

"My… my mother…"

"I shall look for her, Irene, worry not." He walked into another lab, a horribly familiar lab, and Irene began to scream and thrash about in his arms.

"Nein! _Nicht hier!_ " she shrieked, and Thor hurriedly backed out of the room.

"Irene, calm down, you are safe with me. Irene, look at me." His eyes were a serene blue, steady and calm. "What happened in that room?"

She shook her head, but couldn't stop herself as she started to cry. A coarse thumb wiped the tears from her hollow cheeks, and another man stood behind Thor. He was big and blonde too, but his hair was short and he was dressed in more normal clothing, although there was a navy blue helmet dangling from his hand.

"She's wearing HYDRA clothes," the newcomer said, with a hint of distrust. "How do we know they're not going to use her against us?"

"You must trust me, captain," Thor replied, standing up and resting a hand on the other's shoulder. "Whatever this girl was born as, the only thing important to us now is that she needs our help."

The captain nodded, and glanced back into the room she had just left. "Mind if I talk to her for a minute?" he asked. "Get back to the perimeter with Stark, we're almost done here and we need to find the Hulk before he fells the entire forest."

Thor looked uncertain, and his eyes found Irene on the floor again. "Be gentle with her," he warned the captain.

"I've had a lifetime's experience of holding babies for photos, Thor, I'll be fine. Go." The god nodded, and ran back down the corridor as the captain crouched down so he was at eye-level with her.

"Irene, right?" he asked, and she nodded. "You lived here?"

She struggled to translate her thoughts into English. "My father ran the facility," she said, "I was help, me and my mother was help. I try to run away, after… after thing, and they catch me."

The captain nodded, then pointed to the room. "What happened in there?" he asked her. "Take your time, it's alright. Nothing can hurt you now."

She looked at him with wide eyes. "The thing," she said.

The captain pursed his lips as he thought. "Irene, I think a man I'm looking for was in that room. He would have had a metal arm-" he pointed at his own left arm to illustrate. "Do you remember him?"

"Yes," she murmured. "He did not do thing. They try and make him, but he does not and another does instead. Then they-" she pressed her hands to her forehead. "He forget. Next time I see him, he forget."

His eyes were stormy. "What was the thing, Irene?"

"They…" she bit down the scream this time, determined to explain herself. "I do not know, I do not know the word!" she fretted.

"Hush, sweetheart, it was okay. Just think back- I know it's hard, but it'll help the both of us."

She searched her memory for every word said, and suddenly one stuck out, blaring red in her mind.

"They _rape_ me!"

The captain swore under his breath. "Oh, Irene, I'm so sorry. You said Buck- the man, he didn't do it?"

She shook her head. "They want him to. They say he needs punished, he let girl live on, on, on mission and he needs punished. They make him watch, but he is made unconscious when he tries to stop."

If the captain had looked angry before, then now he seemed downright murderous- but he straightened his expression and pulled her to her foot. "I'm going to carry you," he said in a slow, clear voice, "okay?"

"Ja." She curled her fingers into his uniform as he slung her over his back and jogged back down the corridor she had not seen for an amount of time she didn't know, which was empty except for them and the lifeless forms of HYDRA soldiers. "Danke, captain."

"Don't worry about it," he replied as they left the building and sunlight burned her papery skin. "Nat, status report. Any other civilians?" he paused for a moment, probably listening to a reply in his earpiece. "Alright, find Banner. We'll get this one to the quinjet and move out."

He carried her through snowy forest and up a ramp into the inside of a small aeroplane, where a man with a bow and arrow was waiting alongside what appeared to be a red-and-gold robot. The three of them exchanged brief words, too fast for Irene to follow, and the captain carried her into the plane and set her down in a small wing to the left, where he pulled some clinical-looking bags and tubes out from the wall.

"Irene," he said, "I'm going to hook you up to a drip, okay? This part goes into your nose." His fingers brushed against what was left of her hair as he hooked the thing around the back of her ears. "It'll give you nutrients until we can get you to hospital."

"I don't think that's a good idea, Cap," the robot said loudly, "we can't take her to a public place, she knows too much. Get her back to Cho and we can see what she knows."

"We will ensure her health the best way we can," Thor's voice boomed as the captain slid a needle into the skin of her forearm. She barely even felt the pain, as small as it was compared to what she had experienced before. "Her wellbeing takes priority, Stark, before your own enquiries."

"Only because you asked so nicely," Stark the robot muttered, and Irene flinched as its face flipped up to reveal a real, human one behind it. "How long do we think she was in there?"

"Years, by the looks of it. Irene, how- wie alt bist du?"

A small laugh bubbled up in her at his halting German, quickly silenced as she realised the answer. "I do not know," she said, "I was one-and-twenty when I try to leave, that is many years ago now I think. The… thing happen when I am sixteen."

"What thing?" Stark asked loudly, and Thor glared at him. "Touchy subject?"

"Really not a people person, are you, Stark?" the archer asked.

"I'm rich, I don't need to be." As he spoke, two more people walked in- a red-haired woman and a tired-looking man wrapped in a blanket. "All present and correct, cap'n. Jarvis, you wanna autopilot?"

"I'd be happy to, sir," a smooth voice said from the speakers above her, and the ramp lifted up as the plane rose into the air in a roar of engines. "Can I suggest seatbelts? There appears to be some turbulence."

As the others secured themselves into chairs, the captain helped Irene into one and gave her a blanket similar to the other man's. "We'll be in America within a few hours," he assured her, "I would sleep, if I were you."

"I do not think I can," she said weakly, as the other passengers gave her curious looks. "Who are you?"

They all exchanged glances. "We're the Avengers," Stark informed her, with a definite note of pride.

Her eyebrows lowered. "I am sorry. Who are they?"

The redhead woman snorted with laughter as Stark's face fell.

 **A/N I kind of liked writing this chapter because I got the chance to write the Avengers in ways that aren't really that popular in fanfic I think? Like Thor being a very serious, genuine person as like this antithesis to Steve's rage, which he's barely holding back for the sake of civilians present. And Tony Stark being a dick. But that's kind of a rule of thumb.**


	6. Black Sheep, Part Four (M)

**Black Sheep (4/4)**

The people in the massive metal tower (easily the biggest thing Irene had ever seen) did not seem very bothered by the fact she was a bad person. They gave her smiles and sedatives, and when she woke up Thor was at her bedside, to gently explain to her that she would be asked some questions and kept in the tower until her health had stabilised. He called her brave, strong, and he used her name in such a gentle way that Irene began to feel human again.

A woman interviewed her about what she knew of HYDRA; most of her knowledge, which was of the facility itself, was useless to them, but they seemed particularly interested in the glowing golden stick. A different person came to ask her about the nameless soldier, whose name she learned was Bucky. At the end, they asked _her_ for questions, so when she wondered aloud if she was going to get into trouble they laughed, and told her about their civilian rehabilitation programme.

"What do you want to do?" they asked her, and when she said she just wanted to be useful they asked again. "What do you enjoy? What makes you happy?"

"I don't know."

"There must be something," they protested, and she thought harder.

"Freedom," she said at last, "freedom makes me happy."

"Well, Irene, you're in the right country for that. Anything else?"

"I like… knowing things. Learning things," she added, and the Avengers and their jumpsuited friends exchanged looks.

"Erik," Thor said after a pause, "he resides at a university in England, surrounded by open land. We can send her there, and I'm sure he would be glad of the assistance."

"What about it, kid?" Stark asked. "You wanna work under the delightfully dotty Dr Selvig?"

"Sorry," she said, "I do not understand him." She turned to Thor, in the hope he would translate.

"We can give you a home," he said, "freedom, knowledge, and the chance to help a good man."

Her eyes welled up, and she nodded quickly. "Thank you," she said to all of them, "thank you so much. You are all angels."

The redhead woman laughed. "I wouldn't go that far," she said.

"No, you must understand. I prayed- every day- for so many years, and nothing come for me until one day, you turn up and you offer me this… I am sorry, I do not know the word. Erlösung."

"Redemption," Thor translated for the others.

"Yes, thank you Rosetta Stone," Stark muttered, "I understood. I _am_ a certified genius, y'know."

"Really? You hadn't mentioned," the archer said under his breath.

"Tony, we don't all speak German as well as you do-"

A dark-haired woman with an air of authority cleared her throat, and they all fell silent.

"You save me, all of you," Irene continued. "I have new life now, good life. Because of you. Grazia, thank you," she repeated, and they all looked more than a little mollified.

"We're not done yet," Stark added, "you can hardly run around after Selvig all day with one foot, can you?"

She blinked. "Sorry?"

"How do you feel about prosthetics?"

%

 _Six months later_

"Doctor Selvig!"

"Miss Neumann!" the astrophysicist replied cheerfully, "what do you have for me today?"

"Your trousers, doctor sir." She held them out to him, and he stared at them a while. "There have been complaints, and they say you have to wear them, now. I am very sorry."

Selvig sighed deeply and pulled them on, not having any trouble getting his feet through the legs because he wasn't wearing shoes, either. "You're much too good for bringing me my pants, Miss Neumann. Get back to the labs where you belong, you lovely thing."

She nodded, smiling widely. "Yes, doctor sir."

"How many times do I have to ask you to call me Erik, sweetheart?"

Something inside her shifted, the memory of an old habit rising to the surface. But that was the memory of a Hoffmann, the HYDRA girl who kept her head down and only learned what would make her useful. She was Irene Neumann now; not Nazi, just a girl. A wonderfully ordinary girl.

"I think you've hit it, Erik."

He chuckled, and patted her cheek affectionately. And for the first time in her life, Irene felt free; she felt as though she could fly, like she could run for an eternity, faster than light and sound. In her lunch break she went and sat on the stone outdoor steps of the university, looking out at the forests and the fields beyond, unfolding for ever and ever and an infinity more, a world without boundaries, a world without end.

 _Thank you_ , she thought. And was happy.

 **A/N this was more of an epilogue than anything. I like Irene though, and she'll probably crop up in other Civilian Chronicles now she's hanging around with Selvig.**

 _NEXT: 'Coulson pushed open the door and assumed a place by her messy kitchen side, hands clasped behind his back and still with that annoying little smile. "Lilith," he said, "we need you."'_


	7. Normal People Problems (T)

**Normal People Problems**

 **(Agent Coulson, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Rated T)**

 _"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant."_

 _\- Robert Louis Stevenson_

 _Some US City in Some US State, during the year 2008_

"No," said Lily, "you can't do this."

"Sure can, sugarmuffin. My place, my rules."

Lily bit back a swear word and strode over to her dresser, wherein she rummaged through the junk that filled the top drawer until she found a ripped envelope. She unfolded the paper inside, crossed back to where she had been standing and waved it in the man's face.

"See this?" she demanded, "this is our contract. And in our contract, which we _both_ signed, it says that I am not required to pay my rent until the last Sunday of the month, so I think you'll find that-"

She yelped as her landlord snatched it away from her and tore the paper in half. "I changed my mind," he said with a leer, "I want it now, and I don't know what contract you're talking about."

She clenched her fists. "But I haven't been _paid_!" she protested, and the landlord shrugged. "How am I supposed to pay you with money I don't even have, huh?"

"Not my problem, sweetheart."

"But it's you who wants the – you know what?" Lily asked, her voice getting increasingly shrill, "screw it. I'll go see a loan shark, who I'll probably have to pay an arm and a leg in due time, by which I mean _literally_ my arm and my leg, but at least you've got enough money to fuel your nasty booze habit, right?"

The landlord opened his mouth to sneer something back at her, but paused as the doorbell rang. They both glared at each other for two seconds before Lily stormed up to it and yanked open the front door of her crappy apartment. _Timing!_ she thought furiously, _why does everything in my life have the worst possible timing?!_

 _"What?!_ " she practically yelled at the man in the suit who was standing there.

"My name's Agent Coulson," he said with a thin-lipped smile, "I'm with-"

 _Nope._ Lily slammed the door in his face and turned back to her landlord. "Where were we?" she asked him, and the doorbell rang again.

"Aren't you going to get that?" he asked, looking somewhat confused. That being said, Lily suspected it wouldn't take much to confuse him.

"Nope. Come on, let's argue about rent some more." _Normal people problems,_ she thought desperately, _please, let me get back to normal people problems…_

The landlord's phone rang, and he fished it out of his pocket. "Hello?" he asked, "who is thi-" his face blanched, and Lily groaned inwardly as he stammered into the receiver. "Right – I – yes, I'm on my way." He hung up. "I have to go," he said, and fled out of the door without so much as a backwards glance.

Damn.

"Right," she said weakly to the empty room, "you've got rid of him, you might as well come in. Door's open."

Coulson pushed open the door and assumed a place by her messy kitchen side, hands clasped behind his back and still with that annoying little smile. "Lilith," he said, "we need you."

"My name's Lily. And no," she said, "you don't. Please go away."

"Director Fury has started an Initiative," Coulson explained, "for a group of exceptional people-"

"I'm not exceptional, agent," she said, "I'm just a normal person."

"We both know that's not true."

"Well, I want it to be true," she snapped, "and as far as I'm concerned, it is. So please, leave me the hell alone, I'm not – I'm not even doing any harm! Look at me, agent." She held out her arms. "Look at how ordinary this is. I have a nine-to-five job in a call center, and two friends who don't know a lot about me, and I go to a yoga class, and I'm normal, and it's wonderful. Just let me keep that."

"We need you."

"No," she said, "you don't. You need superheroes, agent, not me. You need Tony Stark, and Captain America, and whoever else is dumb enough to come at your beck and call. But not me."

"Ma'am," said Coulson, "I'm afraid it's not optional. Unless you want to use force against my colleagues, but since that would most likely involve some display of-"

"Fine!" she cried out, "fine, have it your way. At least let me grab some things."

Coulson nodded. "Of course."

She went to the cupboard under the window, pulled out her emergency rucksack and slung it on over her shoulders, heart hammering in her chest. Slowly, reluctantly, she turned and took one two three four five six steps towards Coulson – then turned and sprinted towards the window, the yells of the SHIELD agents drowned out by the shattering of the glass as she hurtled out of the sixth storey window.

She slammed into the block opposite and grabbed hold of a windowsill before she fell, pulling herself up with ease and jumping from it onto a drainpipe two feet away. She could hear the barking of orders coming from her own apartment building, but knew they wouldn't shoot in a civilian area unless there was no other option; with a grimace, she shimmied up the pipe and, within seconds, was on the roof.

 _So much for normal people problems,_ she thought as she ran, picking up speed and jumping onto the next rooftop. The impact jarred her knees, her body out of shape and out of practice, but she knew if she ran for long enough then she stood a chance of –

"I'd stay still if I were you."

Lily staggered to a halt, breathing heavily. "Strike team delta," she panted, "long time, no see."

"Wish I could say we missed you," Barton replied, arms taut and perfectly steady with an arrow trained on her forehead, "but I've still got scars that are making me think otherwise."

"I never meant to hurt you," said Lily, "I never meant to hurt anyone. That's why I don't want to be a part of this. Why do none of you people understand that?"

"Don't you think you should be saying this to the Director?" Romanoff asked, red hair being teased across her face by the breeze.

"Not really." She was starting to freak out properly now; she wouldn't get involved in this again, she _couldn't_. "You realize I'm not another hero, right? I don't have a power, or an ability, or a super smart brain or a mega-strong alter ego or whatever, all I have is a – a _monster_ inside of me. And it's not one that, that can be calmed down, you can't put a lid back on it, it's sick and scary and evil and it _cannot_ help you. If you want to do any good in this world, you have to let me go, let me and let it disappear. I can manage it on my own, I swear to you, I have for the last two years."

Lily's full name was Lilith Stevenson, and that's what she knew was on her file. But SHIELD had given her a nickname – two, in fact. One for herself and one for the beast inside of her, and they were always said as a pair.

"You can use it for good," Barton told her, "just as Banner does."

"Don't," she said, "don't compare me to him. The Hulk is pure, he's pure rage, and that's not evil. I am. Please, I don't want to be a monster, I don't want to be _it_ anymore, I don't want to hurt people. Please."

"Tell that to Fury," Barton said as he raised his bow – and then Romanoff placed on hand on his arm as she raised the other to her earpiece, her pistols back in their holsters. "Nat, what're you-"

"Empathising," Romanoff said shortly, "shut up – target ahead, they're fast but we're on their tail. Can't guarantee capture, out." Her eyes, calm and slightly narrow, met Lily's wide and panicky ones. "You have two minutes to get out of sight."

"Oh, God," she said, bending over, "thank you, thank you so much."

"Just run, Lily. Run and don't look back."

Lily did as she was told and disappeared over the edge of the rooftop; by the time night fell, she would already be on a Greyhound out of the city. Meanwhile, back on the roof, Barton lowered his bow and turned to his partner.

"So much for Jekyll and Hyde," he said, returning the arrow to his quiver, "what was that about empathising?"

"I'll tell you later," Natasha replied, slinging an arm around her best friend's shoulders. "She was right, though. A wildcard like that on a team full of wildcards was never gonna end well."

"Tell that to the big man," Barton grumbled, "you coming back to the farm after this mission?"

"As much as I'd love to, Fury wants me to shadow Stark for a while."

"Have fun with that."

"Oh, I will."

They descended back into the building, talking and laughing in the way soldiers did. But later that night, Natasha found a text on her personal phone from a withheld number, smiled to herself, and went back to constructing the alias of Natalie Rushman.

 ** _Thank you for understanding x - L_**

 **A/N because not all superpowers are great, right? Stands to reason. And I liked the idea of Natasha understanding what it's like to be scared of what you're capable of, in a way that Hawkeye couldn't understand. I hope this made sense - it's less of a self contained oneshot and more of a snapshot of a full story, most of which is left up to the reader's imagination to fill in, and I didn't want to give any context or explain that much anyway, but I doubt I pulled that off particularly well.**

 _NEXT: "The worst superpower is never being able to die."_


	8. Heroes or Villains? (bonus chapter!)

_**A/N: this is written as a companion to Civil War; a newspaper article released a couple of weeks before the events of the film. Because of this, it does NOT contain any spoilers x**_

 **THE AVENGERS: HEROES OR VILLAINS?**

 _Writer AG Tattersall takes a closer look for the New York Times at how Western society's perception of the Avengers in popular culture may affect public response in weeks to come._

Despite a smattering of similar events throughout history, most - at least, the American most - consider the 2012 Battle of New York as a turning point in the history of so-called "Enhanced" humans, more commonly known as superheroes. Our small blue world became much smaller and, if not for the actions of a brave few, more vulnerable. The Avengers, most of them already known to the public eye, attained that rare dual status of being military champions and celebrity icons. Suddenly, their faces were everywhere, and children were begging their parents for, please, just one more Iron Man figurine - a man responsible for the death of (admittedly not exactly innocent) Obadiah Stane.

The merest suggestion that these Avengers, under the jurisdiction of the shadowiest of government organisations, might be anything other than benevolent was immediately brushed aside, as was any belief that, regardless of their intentions, they may cause more harm than good. So what if the infamous Loki only tried to conquer Earth because his once-mythical brother had ties to our home? So what if he was taken to a world we know next to nothing about, instead of answering for his crimes like the war hero that he was? The _Avengers_ , man! They're the good guys!

That was the answer that solved everything. It helped that we could forgive them the damage to the world's most influential city - New York is a hardy place, after all. As was Greenwich, as was Washington, when the Avengers brought trouble raining down upon those places too.

It was not until the Ultron debacle that people began to remove their rose-tinted spectacles. Not only was the malevolent AI a direct result of the actions of Stark and Banner, their exploits had spread to countries they had no business in. What people seem to forget is that the Avengers are a Western creation. Even Thor, an alien, influenced Slavic religion that was the heritage of many Americans' ancestors. According to reports, Natasha Romanoff gave up her Russian citizenship along with her former career to become the good, wholesome sidekick of Captain America. Although still well-known, many Eastern countries viewed the Earth's Mightiest Heroes, who so perfectly encapsulate American ideas of honour, freedom and so on, as the next door neighbour's problem. There are no icons of Asian theology in their ensemble, no epitome of an Arabic country decked out in their flag's colours leading the team. This lack of representation, barely made up for by the efforts of the World Security Council to hold the actions of the American SHIELD to account, would no doubt have caused more bother if the Avengers had in fact had a direct impact on the people of these cultures' lives.

And then Iron Man proceeded to drag the Hulk through the fast-rising African nation of Wakanda, causing immeasurable devastation in the process. And then Ultron stole some of South Korea's most advanced technology, created by a government-funded science program, which the Avengers conveniently failed to return. And then Sokovia fell out of the sky.

The eastern European nation is one with both a complex past and present, even without the interference of the Avengers. Its ranking on the Human Development Index is a lowly 0.733, putting at 44th out of 47 for the most developed European countries. It is not in the European Union, its government was on the fringes of the Soviet alliance during the Cold War, and even now it is struggling to deal with the Syrian refugee crisis, due to it, like Hungary and Ukraine, being directly on the route from the war-stricken country to the higher standards of living on the western side of the continent. Before the events of May 2015, the Stark Relief Foundation had no interest in the small, insignificant country, despite it having been repeatedly hit by the weapons his company used to make - something which, no doubt, had a major effect on the country's level of poverty. Now, the name of Sokovia has become the byword for every mistake and negative consequence of the Earth's protectors. This is perhaps because the people of Sokovia, Wakanda and so on have not been subject to the Western propaganda which painted these Avengers as heroes of all, and as such can see them with much less optimistic eyes.

Many have pointed out that, since the Avengers became a private acquisition of Stark Industries as opposed to a glorified strike team of an elite espionage-based wing of government, their antics have become far more destructive. The rumours of an EU treaty that will return them under direct government jurisdiction have been welcomed, reportedly even by Tony Stark itself. It seems that we have a binary view of the Avengers - much like everything else nowadays, we must either love them, hate them or, for the lucky few, continue to be completely indifferent to them.

By sensationalising them, by viewing them as gods and characters rather than merely the people that they are, society has given the Avengers a bar so high it is almost impossible to rise to. When they clear it, we applaud in our amazement; when they fail, as they will inevitably do so, they have failed us and are worthy of our contempt. We do not allow them to make mistakes, and this is understandable. By placing the fate of the Earth on less than a dozen shoulders, we have given them more responsibility than any group so small should have.

Yes - by giving those who protect the Earth just a few, instantly recognisable and empathetic faces as opposed to an anonymous government organisation, we have allowed the general public to understand international affairs as they never have before. The world, at least the Western one, is united under them as they could never be by controversial world leaders in boring suits. And yet by doing this, we have created icons, modern gods, that these few people simply cannot be expected to, well, be. This system has the same flaws as a monarchy, someone appointed rather than elected who has nigh-on divine status, which means that their actions have a massively disproportional impact on all our lives - not just because of the direct effects of world-saving, but also because we glorify these actions until they become the stuff of legend. And legends are, more often than not, possible for real people to achieve. And we have forgotten that the Avengers are, in fact, real people, and must be treated as such - complex people capable of both good and bad, with not a good/evil binary but a scale of morality that they struggle with just as we do. This is, perhaps, why the Eastern and African countries were the ones who responded to Avenger activity just as they would had any other non-celebrity persons destroyed their homes; they had not been groomed to think any which way, but were able to see them with a clarity the Western world had lacked since the WWII days of Captain America.

This article neither condemns nor glorifies the Avengers as other think pieces seem to do - that misses the point altogether. Instead, it is appeal that we forget all the propaganda for and against them, and instead remember to perceive and judge them just as we would ourselves. In the real world, the matter is never so simple as superhero and evil villain. Insiders are saying that the Avengers are not nearly as united internally as their publicist would like us to believe, and it is likely that, soon, we will see some form of conflict between them that will try to force us to once again label one side as right and one as wrong. Before doing so, both in matters of the Avengers and in the wider world, take a moment to remember: we are all just humans. Even the aliens.

 **A/N super mega bonus to get you hyped for Civil War, I wanted to do something properly immersive, like it had been straight up taken from the MCU itself, and thus this thinkpiece was made. It's also written to tally pretty much exactly with how I would respond to Civil War stuff if I was in the MCU, so maaaaaybe this will lead on to a self-insert oneshot one day? Possibly, possibly not. I also wanted to try and tie real-life current events into the MCU, even just a little bit. Anyway, until then enjoy this rambling pointless pretend-article that makes little to no sense. And I promise I'll post the proper next Civilian File soon.**


	9. Ad Infinitum (T)

_**DISCLAIMER: the first couple superpowers listed in this are nicked from season 12 of Red vs Blue, because that show is funnier than I will ever be. Anyway - continue onwards.**_

 **Ad Infinitum**

 **(Rated T)**

 _"Sometimes even to live is an act of courage."_

 _\- Seneca_

What's the worst super power you can think of?

There are some pretty big stinkers that come to mind straight away, right? The ability to teleport two feet at a time, or only Hulk out when you're asleep. The power of talking to fish, but you can't breathe underwater. The remarkable gift of killing everything you touch, or enhanced fart power. Crappy stuff, but no, not the worst. The worst super power is never being able to die.

I know what you're thinking; that sounds _amazing_ , right? Bullets always seem to miss, and you never get more than a papercut. Flu is something that happens to other people, let alone life-threatening diseases. An infinite amount of time, and you haven't aged a day. You could do anything, become anyone, without a worry in the world. And all that's true, I guess, but it's a double-edged sword. Except that metaphor's kinda crappy, because a sword could never hurt you anyway. Nothing could.

It's hard enough having to start again every few decades, lest people cotton on and figure out you're weird, and before you know it you're being burnt at the stake (which is a damned inconvenience, if you ask me). Then there's all the usual stuff people think of: watching those you love die, and no matter how hard you try you're unable to join them; the god complex phase where you think you're superior and go a bit psycho and before you know it, there's blood on your hands and of course it's not yours; that horrible knowledge that nobody will ever believe you're real. The feeling of not belonging to this rebirthing world. It crushes you after a while, all that stuff. Not that it changes anything.

Then there's other things. The terrible things you see – and people always remember the terrible things more than the good, and imagine hundreds, thousands, of years of war and plague and hatred, filling up your mind and forcing out any chance of happy thoughts. The pessimism you develop because of it, and the horror that comes from knowing it will only get worse, and of course you'll be alive to see it. And then it all bundles up; the lost families and the people you killed in war and in peace, the horror and the tragedy of it all until you go insane trying to escape it and it just gets worse, you just fall further into this horrible, miserable circle of misery and miserableness. You get all these experiences, all these mistakes, and not once do you _learn_ from them. Immortals can never hope to become better people; all they can do is struggle not to get worse.

As you may have guessed by now, I'm speaking from experience.

I don't remember being born; I don't remember lots of things, and my first life was one of them. It must have been nice, I can only assume, for me to have forgotten it. The first memory I have is of the hunt, of feeling blood and sinew of… something between my teeth. I get hungry, but I don't starve; I must have been doing it for the thrill. The thrill I don't remember, only the sick feeling afterwards. People wore skins instead of clothes back then, I think. I can't be sure, though – it's all a bit hazy.

I've been a slave, a slave trader, a master and a monarch. I've sailed the seven seas, and climbed the highest mountains. I've fought with clubs, then spears, then bows, then guns; I've travelled by foot and by horse, by carriage and by car. Never by bicycle, though. Huh. Never realised that before. But I guess we're a pretty remarkable species, to have achieved all that, but we've also done some pretty nasty things. I dunno… maybe it's just in my personality to only see the bad in stuff.

I'm definitely human, by the way. Not a single anomaly in my DNA. Weird, huh? The best way I can describe it is that death is just something that happens to other people. Like, back during a time I can't remember, I got the opportunity to opt out. God, I wish I hadn't opted out. I wish I was dead and buried.

I bet you're wondering, why is this poor person telling _me_ all this? And let me tell you, my friend, you are _not_ going to like the answer.

When the agents of SHIELD came to me, I didn't realise at first they were angels in disguise. It wasn't until a couple of incidents that their leader explained to me that people like me, oddities, were out in the open now. I didn't have to change to stay hidden anymore, they said they would give me protection.

I told them I didn't want protection. I told them I wanted an ending.

And boy, did they try. Once they realised I wasn't really anything special, they did their damned best to kill me. Tied to concrete and dropped in the bottom of the ocean? The impact of the splash broke my bonds, and a fisherman picked me up. Gunshot wound? Still missed with a machine gun, at point blank range. Fire? Couldn't get me to light. Electrocution? Don't make me laugh.

It looked like I was never going to get my ending… and then they found out about HYDRA.

Which doesn't seem all that particular, until you get to the small print. HYDRA had a Winter Soldier, a man who they brainwashed. More specifically, they wiped his brain of all personal memories but left him as a functioning, blank, human being. He was like a new person. And then, after the fall of SHIELD, some lingering agents found the equipment they used to do it, and contacted me.

It's not an ending. But it's a new beginning, and that's the best I'm going to get.

And that new beginning is you.

They let me write a letter, since I had a better chance of explaining it than anyone else. Just… do better than I did, okay? Try to see the good in things, and enjoy the feeling of being normal for the first few years. And don't feel guilty about my identity being wiped away; it wasn't a very nice one. You're my clean slate, kid. Do some good with it. If there's any lingering threads of wisdom, maybe you could use them to help _save_ the world for a change; if I were you, I'd see if there were any other immortals out there. It would be nice to have a friend. Good luck.

Oh, and ride a bicycle. At this point, it's pretty much the only thing left on my bucket list.

 _NEXT: "They said she was a demon, and they said you should never, ever talk to her."_


	10. Problem on Nick Fury's Left Shoulder (T)

**The Problem on Nick Fury's Left Shoulder**

" _Ah, Mephistopheles!"_

 _\- Doctor Faustus, Kit Marlowe_

The Lead Box was SHIELD's most well-kept secret. Deep in the heart of a nowhere so nowhere that only three people knew what country it was in, the bunker was designed only to keep one prisoner - not a Hulk, not an alien pretending to be a god, but something archaic, something wicked. That which the organisation could never hope to understand.

They said she was a demon, and they said you should never, ever talk to her.

The agents new to the Box would sometimes laugh at this, and on their night off would drink a little too much and go down to the deepest, darkest room, a room that had no windows, no doors, a room which you could only see inside via a camera. A hologram of yourself was projected into the cell, so that she could see you, talk to you. She refused to talk unless she could see.

This happened about once a year. Annually, the Lead Box always had at least one death a year, always suicide. Sometimes more, though. Sometimes, if she was feeling playful, there would be a shooting.

Nick Fury was the only one who could talk to her unscathed, and he did not for one second doubt that the only reason for this was because she wanted him to be so.

"Hi honey," she crooned as his holographic form shivered into view in front of her, "you're home."

Doctor Faustus was compulsory reading for everyone who came to the Lead Box, obviously. But times had changed since then, and the robes of a monk were hardly fashionable. They had caught her- or rather, she had given herself to them- slap bang in the middle of the sixties, when hippies were holding hands and singing about peace. And so she wore a tie-dye dress and somehow never-wilting daisies in her hair.

"How are things?" she asked him, tracing invisible patterns on the floor with her toe. They had tried to track the foot's movements once to figure out what she was actually drawing, but once the agents started having nightmares they stopped.

"You expect me to believe you don't know?" he asked, and she raised an eyebrow.

"But how would I know, Nicholas? I'm a hermit, completely isolated from the world. All information I have is what you and your soldiers give me- and they have been very well behaved of late, I might add. I haven't had one single visit since the last time you appeared." She smiled. "You train them well."

SHIELD had received a phone call, in 1966, telling them to check the records of three other calls, and then an address. The three other calls had been anonymous, to three completely unconnected people, and had each lasted about half an hour. By the end of each, the recipients of the call- a mother, a father, a five-year old daughter- had been talked by a patient, soothing voice into killing their families. They went to the address and found her waiting for them, playing a game of chess against herself as she did.

"Did your parents never tell you not to play with your food?" Fury asked her.

"My father had bigger problems, Nicholas, as well you know."

"Yeah, yeah," Fury replied, "you're straight up from hell, and not some crazy ass Enhanced with mind control and some really good anti-aging products. You've said before."

Her smile grew wider. "You don't believe me. Of course you don't- this world does not belong to religion, not anymore, but science." She stood up from the bench she was sprawled on. "But there's still a tiny spore of doubt in your mind, isn't there? Festering away, saying, 'what if? What if there is something older than us, than science, than everything we know? And what if it's angry?'"

"You don't scare me," he lied without so much as batting an eyelid.

She nodded. "As you wish. So- _Enhanced_. That's what you call them, now? There must be a fair few, to merit them having a name, and they are common knowledge to you, and I cannot imagine you, Nicholas, letting these little miracles slip through your fingers. So what do you call your freak show? Don't lie to me, Nicholas."

Back in the control room, one of the men swore.

"The Avengers," he said, and she laughed.

"How inspiring! And how many people have they killed?"

"Nowhere near as many as you have."

"But I've never killed anyone, Nicholas. There's not a violent bone in my body. The worst thing I've ever done is talk to people." Her smile widened into a grin. "Just like we are, now. Tell me about your Avengers, my friend. Are they idols to your new culture of science and discovery? Are they your new gods? Gods will fail you, Nicholas. They can never keep their word. Whereas I am always faithful to mine."

That was the worst part. Not one thing she ever said was a lie.

"They will fail you, Nicholas. They already have, haven't they? Why else would they be called the Avengers? They must have had something to seek revenge for. They doubt each other, they are scared of the bigger, nastier things in this universe. They will turn on each other, and in doing so they will turn away from the light. And towards me." She was stood in front of his hologram, but her eyes were fixed on the camera. "You all will, sooner or later. And I will welcome you with open arms- no tests, no requirements. Just an agreement, and your Avengers will have everything they need to save your little blue world. Imagine how much easier the fight would be, if you had me on your side-"

Fury blinked as the hologram died and he was dragged back to the cold, clinical reality of the control room. "Thanks," he said weakly to one of the agents regulating the conversation, who nodded.

"Your heart rate got above a certain speed, the connection dies automatically when it picks up traces of excitement in the body. She got close, sir. I'm sorry."

His eye settled on the screen that still showed her, who was sat back on her bench and laughing to herself.

"Sir, if you don't mind me asking- why don't we just kill her?"

He clenched his fist. "Because we can't, agent. Because whatever the hell she is, it's not something we have an ounce of control over. The only reason she's in here is because she wants to be."

The agent shivered. "Why?"

"I don't know. But the moment she decides she's had enough of this place... To put it bluntly, agent, we're all fucked. Or dammed, if she's telling the truth, like we weren't already."

"You really think she's- she's what she says she is, Director?"

"I don't trust myself enough to think about it. I'll leave her in your capable hands, agent. I have places to be."

That night, Fury received word that the soldier in the control room had shot himself. The news didn't shake him like it used to; it happened every year, after all.

He turned his attention back to the real world, where the evil was all people and there were no demons whispering in their ears.

Or at least, that's what he thought. Back in the Lead Box, Mephistopheles threw back her head and laughed until the invisible sun rose.

 **A/N imagine my surprise when I found out, months after writing this, that there is actually a character based off Mephistopheles in the Marvel comics universe. Still - I thought the Lead Box was a badass name for a prison, and Dr Faustus is one of my favourite plays, and I DO WHAT I WANT, YO.**

 _NEXT: 'The cell door slammed behind her. "Dinner's at six," the prison guard told Natasha. "Word of advice? Don't eat the soup."'_


	11. WHATCG? Part One (M)

**Where Have All The Criminals Gone? (1/?)**

 **(Natasha Romanoff/OC, Clint Barton, Rated M)**

 _"She seems so cool, so focused, so quiet, yet her eyes remain fixed upon the horizon."_

 _\- Strange Little Girls, Neil Gaiman_

 _Day One (Tuesday)_

"Well?" Natasha asked, performing a perfect _soutenu_ in her Perspex heels. Clint cocked his head to one side and took her in with a professional appreciation.

"Like white trash," he concluded after a moment, and Nat popped her gum with a grin.

"That's what I was going for," she replied, pulling the hem of her skirt back down for the millionth time that day. She was used to living in either combat gear or workout stuff, and marvelled at women who could wear stuff like this – the clingy dresses, the suspenders, the borderline-asphyxiating push-up bra – _all the time._ And Barton got away with nothing more than a damn lab coat. "Kinda. First impressions, and all that."

"Well," said Clint, flipping over a page of doctor's notes on his clipboard and peering at the hidden screen beneath it, "Fury's got good news and bad news for ya."

"Oh?"

"Your cellmate's the resident dealer at this prison, so if you can get in her good books then half the inmates'll probably be on your side. The _bad_ news is that she's supposedly difficult to work with."

"I've worked with difficult people before," Nat said, now scraping her hair back into a ponytail with the aid of a liberal amount of gel. "Does it say what _kind_ of difficult?"

"What do you think?" Clint asked, tucking the clipboard under his arm. "Of course it doesn't. Okay. Parrot the brief back at me, Talia Romanez."

"Somewhere in San Helios Women's Correctional Facility is the person who knows the identity and location of the Blue Moon assassin," Natasha relayed back to her partner. "I have two weeks to discover which inmate has that information and get it out of them. Upon gaining that information, I need to break out and meet you at the rendezvous point. The only people who know I'm here are you, me, Coulson and Fury. My name is Talia Romanez, I'm twenty-four, half-Hispanic, and I'm supposed to be serving five years for manslaughter after I ran a guy down with my Toyota. I come from a broken home, I'm a biter, and under no circumstances am I to kill anybody because that'll be way too much paperwork for the cover-up guys back at base."

"You don't _look_ half-Hispanic," Clint protested, "but apart from that, top marks."

"Well, my mom told me my daddy was Mexican," Nat retorted, "and I'm sure she couldn't be mistaken, right?"

"Ha ha. Don't forget about your blood disorder," Clint added, "you have an appointment with me every Wednesday and Saturday, so's we can check up on you. And you know I'm not actually an undercover agent, right?"

"Who else would you want me to go with? Miller? He's an asshole, Clint. I'm not working with a partner who thinks it's okay to not clean up the coffee machine after he's used it."

Clint laughed. "In that case," he said, "it's time for Talia to go to prison."

Clint left her at the check-in station with a pile of false medical records and a whispered reminder about not killing anyone, and Natasha was escorted into a room where she was stripped of her tacky clothes and hosed down by a woman with a slight wispy moustache on her upper lip. The water rinsed the gel out of her hair and turned the red the dark color of a closing wound, and Nat clenched her teeth to stop them from chattering as she pulled on the neon yellow scrubs the guard gave her.

"End of the week you switch to beige," the woman told her, "until then, we gotta keep an eye on the fresh meat."

 _Make me a target, more like,_ Natasha thought gloomily, taking the meagre pile of towels and toiletries the guard handed her. Talia Romanez looked set to be eaten alive in clothes like these, and as she was escorted into the main wing of the prison the whoops and jeers of the other inmates confirmed it. Natasha walked with a slight sway to her hips and stared straight ahead, letting the insults slide off her. Talia had been to prison before. She took no shit from people like this, and for that matter Natasha didn't either.

"This is you," said the moustachio'd guard, unlocking a twin cell and resting a hand on her cudgel as a gentle hint to Nat that she should start moving unless she wanted to get the laziness knocked out of her on her first day. "Hey, Chavez! You got company, ya hear me?"

A pile of blankets on the bottom bunk stirred, and a brownish hand emerged from it and waved lazily. _That's the hand of one of the most powerful women in here,_ Natasha thought. _Great._

The cell door slammed behind her. "Dinner's at six," the guard told her. "Word of advice? Don't get the soup." And with that ominous comment, she left.

Natasha suppressed a sigh and turned around, depositing her worldly belongings on the top bunk and climbing up to sit beside them. Below her, Chavez started to snore.

 _What would Talia do?_ Nat questioned. Within a few days the actions of the persona would come as naturally as if she was being herself, but currently she was still struggling to break this particular identity in. Should she wake the dealer up? Should she wait until dinner? Or should she just make a lot of noise as she settled into the cell, thus establishing that she had no fear of pissing people off?

That last one seemed like fun. Natasha unearthed a second set of scrubs and underwear from her pile – she hopped off of the bunk and pulled open the drawer of the small cabinet beneath the smaller window, dropped them inside along with the towels and slammed the drawer shut again with enough noise to wake the dead. As Chavez continued to snore, Nat pursed her lips and arranged her toiletries – shower gel, toothbrush, toothpaste and a sanitary pad so big it was almost a diaper – along the dusty windowsill, then knocked them off. She swore loudly as they clattered onto the floor, glanced behind her and felt a slight trace of disappointment when she realized that this show was having precisely no effect on her new cellmate.

She had ran out of stuff to do to settle in, as well. She stood in the middle of the cell, more than a little ashamed of herself for this small failure, and peered out through the bars at the mess hall below. The prison was a small one, three storeys high with the cells all on galleries around the walls and a net between each level to stop people throwing themselves or others to their deaths over the edge. At the bottom were a few long tables, currently empty, which at one end had doors which opened up onto a courtyard and at the other led into the heart of the prison, from which the hospital ward, offices, storage and workshop could be reached. It all lined up perfectly with the blueprints she had memorised, and yet after all these years of infiltration Natasha was still surprised by just how many dimensions places had when experienced first-hand.

There were so many smells in here. Dope was the strongest one, underlaced by bootleg beer and unclean bathrooms, but there were also slightly sweeter scents of contraband cosmetics and that distinctly female aroma that Nat hadn't smelled in such intensity since she was a teenager. God, that was nearly a decade ago, now. The prison reminded her a little of it. Here it was infinitely more chaotic, but there was something about the barrenness, the sensation that there was no world worth considering beyond these walls…

"She was right about the soup, you know. You don't wanna know what's in it for the newbies."

Natasha turned and saw, in a tangle of dark hair, the most beautiful eyes that there had ever been. They blinked at her, and somewhere beneath them a smile emerged.

"Maybe I do," Natasha replied, finding her voice. She didn't bother with an accent, though. "Why you telling me?"

The corners of those shocking eyes crinkled as the smile grew wider. "Karma?" said the smile, and its owner stood up, the blankets falling from her shoulders. They revealed a woman, surely no older than Natasha and smaller in height and width (and Nat was not large by any measure), a woman with a great deal of dark hair, a pierced lower lip and eyes the color of midnight. "What's your name, newbie?"

"Romanez. Talia Romanez."

"Pretty name, Romanez-Talia-Romanez. Chicks round here call me Melanie, seeing as it's the word on my birth certificate and that," said Chavez, still with the grin on her face. Nat had seen blue eyes before, but none so dark as this; the almost-indigo shade seemed to melt into the black of her pupils like two little black holes. "See they gave you the full welcome package, then."

Natasha turned and followed Melanie's gaze to her fresh new belongings. "Yeah."

Melanie clucked her tongue against the roof of the mouth and strolled over to the windowsill, giving the overlarge sanitary pad a disdainful look. "Lucky for you this is the El Dorado of San Helios, Talia."

"What?" Nat asked, as Melanie crossed to her bed and lifted up the edge of the mattress closest to the wall. When the woman bent over Nat could see a glimpse of tattoo at the base of her back: butterflies, badly done and faded but still pretty.

Melanie dropped the mattress and held out a pack of tampons. "I got gold dust under my pillow," she said, "here. Consider it a housewarming gift."

Natasha stared at the packet. "I… don't need 'em," she said.

"Oh. You got an implant?"

"Something like that."

Melanie had perfect cupid's-bow lips; they puckered in sympathy as Nat said that. "Yeah," she said, "we got a lot of 'something like that's in here. But take 'em anyway. Like I said, they're gold dust. Better currency than cigarettes. I got those too, if you want some."

Nat laughed. "I'm fine, thanks."

Melanie sat down on her bunk, crossed her legs like a princess and rested her chin on the back of her hand as she scrutinised Natasha. "You're a pretty girl, Talia," she said. "You been inside before?"

She almost said 'none of your business', as Talia probably should have, but Natasha – paranoid, ex-KGB Natasha Romanoff – found herself trusting her cellmate. "Yeah," she said, "couple times, a few years ago. I know how to fight."

"Good," said Melanie, "that'll help." She twisted her wrist and used her delicate hand to cover her mouth as she yawned. "Well, Romanez-Talia-Romanez, it was nice talking to you. Stick the tampons in your bra to keep 'em safe, sit on your own at dinner and remember what the guard said about the soup." She flopped down onto her side and pulled the covers up over her head. "And next time you think about trying to wake me up," she added in a muffled voice, "don't."

Natasha stared at the pile of blankets, turning the tampons over and over in her hand. _So_ she's _my guide for this hole,_ she thought, _assuming she ever wakes up. I wonder if this is what was meant by 'difficult'. At least she's cute._

Natasha pulled herself up onto her bunk, laid down and decided to take a nap before dinner. But try as she could to get to sleep, she kept coming back to thinking about midnight blue eyes and badly-tattooed butterflies.

%

The cell doors unlocked automatically. Natasha wondered if she should leave Melanie behind, but then remembered her warning about waking the girl up and went down to dinner without her. She was almost at the end of the line for food, behind a large black woman with a shaven head and a scar down the back of her neck, and she ignored the jostling of the people behind her.

"You want sausages or soup?" the server asked her when she finally reached the food, another inmate with a face like a bulldog and her hair tucked beneath a net.

"Sausages," Natasha replied, eyeing the pile of slightly burnt meat with a hungry expression. Although she herself only felt peckish, Talia Romanez would be famished by now.

The woman serving the food grinned nastily. One of her bottom front teeth were missing, and she took Natasha's tray out of her hands. "We're all out," she said, clearly daring Nat to point out that there was a tray full of the things right between them. "Soup for you, then."

The woman behind Nat sniggered as a bowl of colorless liquid was dropped onto her tray, sloshing some of its contents over the side. She got a bruised apple, too. "Thanks," said Nat, taking her tray back and walking away, grabbing a spoon as she went. She headed for the last empty table and sat down on the end of it, half-listening to the whispers that followed.

 _"Does she know about the soup?"_

 _"Of course she knows about the damn soup!"_

 _"Oh, are we in for a show tonight, ladies!"_

Natasha picked up her spoon, wiped it clean with the hem of her shirt, and dipped it into the broth. The woman who had served her it was watching her from the counter, that horrible little smile still twisting her face. Natasha kept her eyes fixed on the other woman as she took a mouthful of the liquid, almost scalding her mouth in the process. Around her, the mess hall filled with giggling. God, it was _foul._

 _Don't think about it._

Calmly, she swallowed the mouthful without batting an eyelid and dipped her spoon into the bowl, taking another, larger amount and choking it down without a trace of her disgust showing on her face.

One by one, spoonful by spoonful, the other inmates stopped giggling as Natasha leisurely worked her way through the bowl, very determinedly not imagining what the secret ingredient was. As she drank, she thought longingly of Laura Barton's cooking, and decided that, when she was done, she was going to eat the entire tube of toothpaste she had been given.

When her spoon knocked against the bottom of the bowl, Natasha set it aside, picked up the crockery itself and drained it, pressing her lips to the rim. The prison was silent. Even the guards were watching in horror. Melanie was still nowhere to be seen.

She put down the empty bowl, ate the apple and carried her tray back up to the food counter, where she handed it back to the woman to shelve. "Could do with a little more salt," she said with a smile.

The woman snarled and extended a hand, whether to claw or grab or punch Nat didn't know, but she raised a fist to defend herself –

"Careful, Dolly," said a languid voice at Natasha's shoulder, and slender brownish fingers wrapped around the server's wrist. "This one's mine. Try not to break her pretty face, okay?"

"She –"

"She what?" Melanie asked, as though she were talking about the weather and not diffusing a cat fight. "Liked your soup? Gave you some pointers on how to make it better? Because that's what I saw. You saying I'm wrong, Dolly? You saying you wanna argue with me?"

Dolly yanked her fat wrist out of Melanie's grip. "Go to hell, Chavez," she snapped.

"That's the spirit. Come on, Romanez-Talia-Romanez. I ain't feeling the atmosphere tonight. This place, it's got no ambience."

Melanie led her back up the stairs and towards their cell. As they left the mess hall, the whispers started again.

 _"Did you see that? She et the whole friggin' thing!"_

 _"Chavez said newbie's her bitch. I ain't surprised after a show like that."_

 _"She's got a nice ass."_

 _"It's Chavez' ass, now. You wanna ask her for it? Thought not."_

Melanie closed their cell door behind them. It didn't lock, since this was still communal time, and it swung open again an inch or two. "Toilet's through there," she told Natasha, pointing to a shabby door on the other side of the cell. "Go on. I won't tell anyone."

Natasha nodded, ran into the little toilet room, stuck her fingers down her throat and vomited until the only thing left coming up was bile. And then, making true to her promise to herself, she ate her toothpaste.

"That was a smart move, Talia," Melanie said, leaning in the doorway. "They won't fuck with you now."

"They won't fuck with me because you stuck up for me," Natasha corrected her, wiping her mouth with a shudder. "Thanks."

Melanie shrugged. "My last roomie got targeted 'cuz of me," she said, "got the seven bells kicked outta her for not nicking anything from my little El Dorado. Still got the cow on my conscience, and I ain't having you on it as well. Don't think they'll try that again, not after how the last time ended up, but still. Better to be safe than sorry, huh? I'll look out for you when you need it, Romanez. Don't worry."

"How did last time end up?" Natasha asked.

Melanie ran her thumbnail along the doorframe, dislodging brown-black dirt as she did. "I ain't a fighter," she said, "but a load of people in here owe me favors."

"You got a monopoly on this place," Natasha said, "huh?"

"Little bit," Melanie smiled. "Aren't you lucky you got stuck with me?"

 _Luck, and Barton hacking the system to change my allocation twenty minutes before I arrived,_ Natasha thought, but obviously didn't say it out loud. "Yeah," she said instead, leaving the bathroom.

Melanie tapped her lightly on the ass as she passed. "Once more with feeling, girl!"

Natasha looked over her shoulder and grinned. "Aren't I lucky?" she asked in a syrup-sweet voice, and Melanie raised an eyebrow.

"Flirting already," she said, "hell, aren't you just a little firecracker?"

 **A/N this short fic will not have weekly updates because I actually only have two chapters written, and have** ** _no_** **idea where I'm going with it. Oh well. We'll soon find out.**


	12. WHATCG? Part Two (M)

**Where Have All The Criminals Gone? (2/?)**

 _Day Two (Wednesday)_

"So," said Clint as he took a sample of Talia Romanez' diseased blood, "you settled in yet? Made any friends? Found our target?"

Natasha swung her legs to and fro, fingers resting on the edge of the hospital bed. "The dealer likes me."

"Oh," said Clint, "the dealer. Yeah, that's good. If you find her stash then you can blackmail her, threaten to throw her to the guards if she doesn't help you."

"Or I could just ask her nicely," Natasha replied, and Clint chuckled. "I was being serious."

He looked up from his clipboard. "What, really? That's not your style. You think you've got her under your thumb, then."

"No. She's got too much sway in here to fall for fresh meat like me. I just don't particularly want to piss her off."

"I'm sure you could handle her," said Clint, "if you did."

"That's not why," Nat told him. "What? I'm allowed to like people, aren't I?"

"Sure you are," said Clint, "it just makes me feel less special."

"If you're jealous, you can put on a wig and join me in here. The soup's delicious."

"I'll pass, thanks. So, you got nothing new?"

"Nope."

"I'll see you Saturday, then. Say hi to your new girlfriend for me."

"Will do," Natasha said, hopping off the bed and leaving the box room. A guard was waiting for her, and put a coarse hand on Nat's shoulder as she was led back to her cell. It was early morning, an hour or two before they would be allowed out into the courtyard, and being stuck in a small space was making Nat restless. It wasn't like she couldn't break out – she had spent most of last night lying awake, making up escape routes that were each more likely to succeed unnoticed than the last – but that she knew she wouldn't, not until she had found out the identity of the Blue Moon killer. And then she could get out of this damn place, with blankets almost as thin as those of the Red Room.

It got harder to remember where she was when she closed her eyes and sleep was near. In the hour of the wolf the previous night the prison had been as quiet as it was going to get, and Nat had listened to the distant cries and occasional night-terror scream that echoed around the stone-and-metal building. The New Mexico prison was a world away from Soviet Russia, but then it had felt like she was home again. It was not a pleasant feeling. The small amount of sleep that Nat had managed to get was saturated with nightmares and old memories that she would much rather forget.

There had been one saving grace, and that was waking up from her fitful sleep to see Melanie sat on the floor of her cell, counting inventory of a stunning amount of contraband. Natasha had watched the woman, illuminated by moonlight, as she leafed through packets of cigarettes, Ziploc bags filled with rainbow-colored pills, mobile phones, tampons, make-up, dope, fancy underwear and a hell of a lot more besides. The green emergency lighting from indoors and the silvery glow from outside had sapped the tawny tint from her skin, but her eyes seemed brighter in the dark and practically shone, cat-like, as they flashed over her goods.

Melanie had swept all of it up with one hand and disappeared from view – Natasha heard the sounds of her mattress being rearranged. Ten minutes later the woman had started snoring again.

 _That_ had never happened in the Red Room.

Melanie was, unsurprisingly, asleep when Nat returned to her cell, but woke up half an hour or so later. "My doctor says hi," she told her, and Melanie gave her a thumbs up as she shuffled towards the sink. Natasha observed, almost idly, that she was only wearing panties, and not the prison-issued ones at that. They were black, and tight, and made the colors of the butterflies tattooed on her back pop.

"Nice to know," said Melanie, splashing her face with water. She hesitated for a moment, then glanced at Natasha. "This ain't making you uncomfortable, is it?" she asked, waving a hand at her naked torso.

"Not even slightly."

"You're cute," Melanie smiled. The curve of her lips knocked her piercing slightly askew, and Natasha had to fight the urge to correct it. "You ever play poker, Romanez-Talia-Romanez?"

"Sometimes."

Melanie left the bathroom and began to dress, reaching beneath her mattress and tucking a packet of something into her bra as she did. "You seem like the kinda chick to have a damn good poker face," she observed.

Natasha tensed slightly. "Why d'you say that?"

"Well," said Melanie, "I was wandering round shirtless a moment ago, and you weren't salivating. I'm almost insulted." She walked up to Natasha and stared at her with her perfect eyes, so close that Nat could have counted her lashes. "Should I be?"

"No," Natasha replied, "I'm just very good at poker."

Somewhere in the back of her head, a voice that sounded a little like Clint Barton and a _lot_ like Phil Coulson was screaming at her to keep it professional. But Natasha was good at keeping business and pleasure separate; she could easily endear herself to this woman, form a meaningful and above all _useful_ relationship without falling for her in the slightest. She had done it hundreds of times before.

A loud buzz echoed around the prison and the doors clicked open, accompanied by the guards announcing that it was time to get some fresh air, ladies, get off your asses and _move._ Melanie raised an eyebrow at Natasha and led the way.

%

"I don't give a damn if you got all the dope I can smoke, Chavez. I ain't having no white bitch sit with us."

"I'm half-Hispanic," Nat said, as Melanie handed the large Latina woman a joint.

"You don't look it."

"She's half-Hispanic," Melanie said firmly, and that was that.

The Latina clique of San Helios sat in the sunniest corner of the courtyard, and smoked, and played cards. If the guards noticed the contraband cigarettes and dope, they didn't do anything about it, and Natasha was slightly surprised to see that Melanie engaged in neither of the two activities, nor did she fall asleep. Instead she lounged on the wooden bench that ringed the edge of the courtyard like a throne, seemingly unpaid for the goods she had brought, and watched the poker game unfold.

The large woman who seemed to run the clique was called Maria. It became clear from the outset that, even if she wasn't in for killing, she clearly didn't have a problem with it, but she seemed to messy, too personal, to keep a secret like the identity of the Blue Moon assassin. Her girlfriend, a tiny woman with a pixie cut and tattoos over her entire visible body, could be read like a book – Natasha, who was not playing, had guessed whether she would fold or not successfully every round. Then there was Tina, who was betting high with her contraband tampons and winning even more of them back; Nat kept an eye on her, but considered her unlikely as she was serving time for a one-off occurrence of drug-smuggling and clearly wasn't the criminal type, and certainly not the type to associate with assassins. In fact, none of the dozen or so Hispanic women sounded any alarms for Natasha.

The Blue Moon assassin had gained their name because kills cropped up with their modus operandi. more often than PR complaints about Jasper Sitwell, and sarcasm was the closest SHIELD got to humor these days. They had been responsible, according to SHIELD records, for the deaths of eight high-ranking SHIELD officials, several congressmen and three reality television stars since the turn of the century, more than thrice the average for the kind of hitmen Nat was used to dealing with, and if SHIELD could get hold of the killer themselves they could find out _why_ those particular people had been targeted. The victims' financial records had shown payments into their accounts a dummy corporation, and Fury wanted to know who the hell had been bribing some of his most trusted advisors (as well as the politicians and celebs), and why they had been killed. Since the dummy corporation was a cold lead, he had called in Strike Team Delta to find the killer and figure out if they were private or freelance, enhanced or just plain talented, and most importantly whether or not they should be eliminated.

Nat herself did not know all of this, and had no problem with Fury's compartmentalization of the issue. All she knew was that she and Clint were expected to find the Blue Moon assassin, and that everyone in certain illicit circles knew he was fucking somebody in San Helios penitentiary – or at least, he had been before she had gone inside. Since that was pretty much the only thing anyone knew about him, Natasha had ended up here.

"Do they do conjugal visits here?" she asked, and Melanie raised one slender eyebrow at her.

"Missing somebody, Romanez?" she asked coolly.

"Just wondered."

"Once a month," Maria told her, as Melanie snapped her fingers. Someone handed her a cigarette and she lit it with a match she struck on the sole of her non-regulation boots. "Whoever it is you wanna screw needs to get in contact with the governor. That's the deal, ain't it, Chavez?"

"Mmm," Melanie said, taking a drag on the cigarette.

Maria's girlfriend leant towards Natasha. "It's how she talks to her supplier," she whispered. "Fuckin' miracle the guards ain't caught on yet. There's only a half dozen bitches in here who get conjugal visitors, anyway."

That meant six – well, five if she were to exclude Melanie – women in here were the likeliest suspects for the Blue Moon's girlfriend. If Natasha could become the seventh, then there was a fairly good chance she would end up in the same room as the man himself. Okay. That sounded like a plan.

"You didn't answer my question," Melanie said bluntly, and Natasha blinked in surprise as somebody hissed under their breath. "Who you missing, Romanez?"

"Why d'you care?" Natasha replied, and quick as a flash Melanie had darted across the bench and grabbed the front of her shirt in one small fist.

"'Cuz I wanna know who my roomie's fucking," she hissed, holding her cigarette butt so close to Natasha's cheek it almost burnt. "You live with me now, Romanez. Your business is my fucking business, you got that?"

"Nobody!" Natasha exclaimed, Melanie's nicotine-stained breath hot on her lips.

"Say it again."

"I don't wanna screw anybody, I swear!"

Melanie released her and leant back. "Good," she said, "I don't want my roomie fucking with nobody but me. That leads to problems." She stamped out her cigarette and walked back inside.

"And that," said Maria, "is why you do not mess with Melanie Chavez. Crazy bitch. People be in and out of her El Dorado faster than if they was on a conveyor belt."

Natasha pressed a hand to her cheek to check it had not been burnt. "I know about the cellmate that got beat up," she said, "there were others?"

"Gossip's got a price, lady," Maria replied, and Natasha removed a couple of tampons from her bra and handed them over. "That's my girl. Mara? Yeah, she got taken outta there in a jam jar. That fucked Mel up pretty bad, but the one before that, it turned out her boy on the outside knew Chavez, wanted her to pay back some old debts. Used the girl to try and get to her."

"What happened?"

"Long story short, Chavez got another decade added to her sentence," Maria said. "You don't fuck with El Dorado."

%

Natasha returned to her cell to find Melanie asleep, completely hidden beneath her blanket. She sat on the floor and waited in silence for two hours, until her cellmate stirred and sat up, one hand pressed to her face.

"Jesus," she said, peering at Natasha through her fingers, "you're all I need."

"I don't have anyone on the outside," Natasha said, "I promise. Unless you count the doctor. Maria told me about your old roommate, and I get it. Paranoia's probably the safest bet in here."

Melanie glared. "The fuck is your deal, Romanez?" she asked, "hit and run, my ass. I nearly ruined your pretty face earlier, and you didn't even blink. What're you doing in here? Why d'you wanna know about conjugal visits?"

 _She won't trust me until I tell the truth,_ Nat thought, _and I need her to trust me. But I can't tell her who I am, either._

"I'm looking for a guy," she said, "that's all I can tell you."

"Women's penitentiary is a bad place to find some dick, Romanez."

"I got a hunch."

Melanie dropped her hand from her face and tilted her head to one side. "Any guy in particular?"

"Yeah."

"Is he in your good books or not?"

"Not," said Natasha, "definitely not."

Suddenly, Melanie smiled, a big crooked half-moon of a grin. She ran her thumb over her piercing and bit down on her lower lip, then held out a hand. Natasha took it and pulled Melanie to her feet, who wrapped her arms around Natasha's waist without dropping the grin.

"You want my help?" she asked.

"Why?"

"Because," said Melanie, "I don't think you're planning on staying here long, Talia Romanez. I think as soon as you find this guy, you're leaving. And that means you're my ticket outta here."

In an effort to feel at least a little more in control, Natasha put her hands on Melanie's hips. Her fingers brushed against the skin beneath her shirt, finding it warm and soft. "I don't make deals," she whispered.

"Well, I'm pretty good at 'em," Melanie replied, her midnight eyes steady and serene. "I'm a good place to start, don't you think?"

And then she kissed her. It was lightning-fast and chaste, but it sent a shock through Natasha's body more electric than any torture she had experienced. Melanie still tasted of cigarettes, and her lips were as soft as roses.

Melanie stepped away. "Think it over," she said softly. "You know where to find me. Right underneath you."

 **A/N still have no idea where I'm going with this. But I** ** _think_** **that the next chapter might** ** _possibly_** **be a funny one, although you probably shouldn't hold me to that.**


	13. WHATCG? Part Three (M)

**Where Have All The Criminals Gone? (3/?)**

 _Day Five (Saturday)_

"No. No way. Not gonna happen. Nope."

"It's the best idea we've got," Natasha said in a pacifying tone of voice that she had learnt off Laura Barton. "She's a risk, but –"

"A risk?" Clint repeated. "A _risk?_ Nat, she tried to use your face as an ash tray!"

"It was just for show," she replied, not entirely convinced that that was true. "Look – she's one of six people in here who get conjugal visits, which are our best chance of finding the Blue Moon killer. She knows everyone in here better than they do themselves, she's more powerful than the governor, she has a strong incentive to help us _and_ she has a thing for me. Clint, come on. We'd be insane not to enlist her."

"Oh? And what are you gonna tell her, exactly?" Clint asked, folding his arms. "That you're an ex-Soviet hitwoman who defected to an American intelligence agency more secretive than Area 51, and that you're looking for a guy who could take out the President?"

"I'll tell her what she needs to know," Natasha said.

"Don't talk like a spy to me. Come _on,_ Nat. Be professional."

Nat cocked her head to one side. "I'm sorry," she said, "what makes you think I'm being anything but?"

Clint realized that he'd made a mistake with commendable speed, although still far too late. "It's just – normally when you play up the romance side it's been premeditated, right? But this is spontaneous, it's unplanned, and you're in there on your own, and –"

"You think I can't keep it in my pants," Natasha finished for him. "And that it's clouding my judgement."

"No!" Clint retorted, guiltily. "Well… you always had a thing for dangerous men. Women. Whatever."

"Since when?"

"Since that dream with Charles Harrelson that you told me about." 

"I told you about that in confidence," Natasha snapped, "and I didn't come here to be patronized. I survived perfectly well on my own before, and I certainly don't need _your_ input now!" 

"Fine! Go and Shawshank with your girlfriend, then!" 

"Fine!"

Nat stormed out of the room and past the guards back to the main complex of the prison (they didn't try to slow her down; they were only worried about when people were trying to get out, not the other way around). She was so angry that she didn't notice Melanie until they collided in the entrance to their cell.

"Got somewhere to be, Romanez-Talia-Romanez?" Melanie asked. In her rage Nat could only take the woman's languid tone as mocking, and if there was one thing Natasha Romanoff hated, it was being mocked.

"Go to hell," she said, and Melanie raised an eyebrow.

"The fuck did you just say to me?" she asked calmly.

Nat faltered. Maybe Talia Romanez would let her emotions get the better of her, but the undercover agent in her certainly wouldn't. "Nothing," she said.

Melanie didn't soften. "Thought you wanted my help," she said, "but I guess not. Maybe if you ask the guard nice, she'll let you move cells, make this a little bit less awkward."

"No," said Nat, "I do. I do want your help." 

Those eyes, those midnight lagoon eyes, were far more beautiful, and far more dangerous, than any Natasha had ever seen before. They held her gaze unmovingly, challengingly. "Prove it," said Melanie.

Talia – or maybe just Natasha – kissed her, kissed her so suddenly that she pushed Melanie up against the back wall of the cell and lifted her up off of the floor. Natasha felt the woman's legs wrap around her waist, felt one hand ball into a fist in her hair and pull so that her neck was exposed, felt lips press against her throat and kiss their way down it.

"Say it again," Melanie said.

"I want you. I need you," Natasha breathed, and wasn't sure how much of it was just lies and manipulation.

"You'd better not fucking forget it, Romanez," Melanie ordered, her fingers biting into Natasha's skin.

%

They were lit by moonlight, tangled together in Melanie's bunk, her hair like ripped black ribbons against the threadbare sheets. "Tell me about him," said Natasha's ally, "tell me about this guy you wanna find so bad."

"He's a hitman. He's from around here, we think –"

"Blue moon killer," said Melanie, her eyes open and staring into the middle distance. "Yeah?"

Natasha paused. "How'd you know?"

"I know everything," Melanie said, and chuckled softly. "He's our local celebrity, Romanez. And I move in similar circles – at least, I did. What you doing, looking for a guy like that? You wanna hire him? There are better men to hire."

"I wanna kill him," said Natasha, and Melanie laughed again.

"I won't ask why," she said. "Don't think I _wanna_ know. So, you think he's hiding in here, then? Pretty sure we'd a'noticed by now."

"No. But his girlfriend is, and he visits her."

"Huh," said Melanie. "Small world." She stood up so suddenly Nat started and walked to the tiny window, rising onto her toes so she could rest her chin on the sill. "Blue Moon killer," she murmured. "You know how he got that name, Romanez-Talia-Romanez?"

"Because that's how often he takes out a hit."

Melanie snorted. "Or is that just how often you find 'em? Nah, that's not it."

"How do you know?"

"I know everything." Starlight bathed the jailbird's face, turning her skin gray and eyelashes silver. "Shit. You want me to hand him over to you all trussed up and ready for slaughter, don't ya?"

"A name will do," Nat replied, sitting up.

"Girls in here tend to be pretty protective of their men, y'know. They won't just own up if I say pretty please."

"You're not the pretty please type," Nat said, and Melanie snorted.

"Yeah," she agreed, "I ain't that." She stepped away from the window and said, under her breath, "Shawshank."

Nat sat perfectly still, waiting for the woman to make the next move. There was something more to this than a simple sell-out, she was sure of it. Melanie Chavez wasn't the type to waver in indecision, so to cause this hesitation there must have been _something_ personal going on.

 _She already knows who it is,_ Nat thought, and as soon as she did she realized it was true. _And she wants to protect the girlfriend._ She felt a pang of jealousy, followed instantly by surprise. _Oh, no. Don't you dare, Romanov. Don't get involved._

"There's conjugal visits on Thursday," Melanie said, eyes still lingering on the little patch of midnight sky. "I'll get you your killer, and you get me outta here, or I'll make sure you die slow and painful."

"Thank you." 

"Don't fucking mention it," Melanie replied, "seriously. We'll both get killed if anyone finds out."

 **A/N _totally_ on top of the update schedule with this one, lads. On the plus side I reckon I've got it more or less figured out how this story ends, and estimate about two more chapters. Thank you ever so much for your patience.**


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